I was one of the few lucky people to get a Beta invitation to WhyGoSolo. This means I filled out their form and begged for it. Well I was finally able to sign in this past weekend and take a peek. It appears to be a great product, but unlike other sites this one will not grow just by you connecting with random people. This site will require WORK on the users part for it to be of any value.
WhyGoSolo is a very different type of social networking site. It is not focused on helping you make virtual connections (LinkedIn has excelled at that and I have all kinds of neat random people of no value in my ‘network’) . It appears to me that it is focused on helping you make REAL live flesh and blood people connections. In a nutshell - You are going to the basketball game. I am going to the basketball game. Let’s plan it out and go to together. Now just take this concept and apply it coffee shop meetings, business dinners, conferences, poker games, etc. WhyGoSolo means “why go to that place or event by yourself.”.
Once you join and sign in you have the usual places to list your occupation, sites, hobbies, location, and passions. But the great part about the site is the ‘Community Board’ section. It is here where you can go search for events (not the weak online type. The real human type.) that are happening in your country, state and city. They have the events broken up into different sections so it is easy to find poker games vs. church meetings vs. off broadway shows, etc. As I check right now their list of events is starting to build. There are none here in Oklahoma City planned except my one test one. But the events list in the large cities on the East coast are starting to grow.
My open suggestions for improvement in a future version or versions:
1. You should gather the users zip code in their profile. This will allow you to prepare for…
2 . As the site grows I don’t think city will be enough of a drilldown. You should get it to show events within X miles of Zip Code 12345. The events might have to be added that way also.
3. Once you get #1 done incorporate Google maps so I can see where the events are in my city relative to me.
4. Allow for recurring events.
Overall I am pretty happy with the site. But like I mentioned earlier this site needs ALOT of input to be useful. User contributed content will be vital for this site to succeed. The WGS development team has busted their butts to bring us something pretty darn cool. So go over there and get your signup so you can add your events. In other words - Stop Doing Nothing!
Have a great week.
Patrick
P.S. Are you using WGS yet? If so post some comments of your first impression. I know the authors read this blog so any suggestions for improvement are welcome here also.
