Miio – first impression

Heard of Miio? No? Well it is a new social networking site. Yes, there are dime a dozen sites now and we are spoilt for choice- with FB and Twitter being the compulsory ones, but this stands out.

Though I am slightly apprehensive about joining new social networking sites(albeit joining twitter within a month or so after its launch), I decided to give this a shot.

From Downloads

So this is what they say about Miio in their about me page:-

With Miio we can

• Chat about breaking news, music, TV shows, sports, movies, gadgets, celebrities, or just whatever.
• Share photos, videos, and links.
• Ask questions. Get answers.
• Write reviews.
• And a lot more.

To put it short:

twitter + fb + a bit more = miio. This will be your first impression.

The Good stuff:-

– The way the site looks! :- Clean, neat and simple. A bit of colour in the timeline and sidebar- very easy to look at.

– Posts:- Similar to facebook you can post anything you want- videos, pics, links etc. And like twitter, this goes into a timeline. And they are nicely packed into boxes- uncluttered.

–RSS:- You can add your site’s RSS!! Now that is really cool. At the moment, there are various NEWS sites who are on miio, they seem to be using this feature extensively. You can’t do that on twitter. You have to add networked blogs in FB.

But you can add only one RSS feed at the moment- I have added my google reader’s feed to it now so that it is easier to share the posts which I read.

–Costumer Service:- #Epicwin ! they followed me, welcomed me and responded to my queries! Wow! Where do we see that? What with facebook’s service being worse than the airline industries etc , this stands out! You feel welcome!

–Managing people:- In FB, you need to go to privacy settings. It probably took you time to realize that, that small button next to ‘following'(in a user’s page) on twitter is actually for mobile updates- no such hassles here. The settings open once you follow someone/ join a group. You can even choose type of updates you see in your ‘dashboard’.

If you use chrome, you might be using the Intersect plugin on twitter(it shows you mutually friends, followers etc). Miio- already does that. No confusion and no need to use filtermanager or other such service to know who is not following you back.

–Threads:- Again similar to facebook. When you reply/others reply, a ‘thread’ is formed. This is really nice. We all know the chaos which ensues on twitter with replies!

– Alerts:- this is damn clever. You can add key words and when a post is filed related to that, you get a notification. Want to search for something related to India? Just put an alert. No fear of losing it or waiting for people to reply to your requests.

Things I don’t like:-

Dashboard Timeline:- Only 5 posts appear automatically in the dashboard. When it’s only RSS which appear, this is a good thing. But it will be nice to see at least 20 posts appearing.

Sidebar positioning:- It does take some time for you to get used to the sidebar. Especially because of a gap the size of a sidebar on the left. A simple solution would be to move the sidebar and the timeline towards right- that should do it.

Conclusion:-

This is only a first impression. I still have not yet tested the groups feature(just joined one called ‘bloggers’).

Miio is surely worth giving a shot. Will it compete with twitter and facebook? I don’t think so. But it will have its use- after all it is easier to read and more pleasing to the eye. This will be a good service to add your feeds and share links and info. The probability of missing information which you can use is lesser- especially with alerts. And hopefully even if there aren’t many members, they will be quality members(keep those celebs who tweet about their dog, cat etc out please! ).

Blending FB’s and Twitter’s features might be a master stroke- after all we don’t like to add anyone and everyone on FB and twitter is restricted by 140 characters and of course the Fail Whale.

While it is twitter + fb at the moment, the site can grow if they thrown in a bit of google reader(and other such services). With the thread feature, you can have discussions and stories can become more interactive.

Try it.

P.S:- Again, this is only a first impression.

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