Zude Offers New Technology in Social Networking
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The past couple of years have been such a fertile period for social networking ideas that words like “revolutionary” should be demanding hazard pay. But Fifth Generation Systems has been causing enough buzz to make one wonder if there’s more than mere hype behind it. Indeed, at least one observer has described the company’s latest project as THE web of the future.
It’s called Zude, and it is currently in public beta. What makes it special? It boasts what Fifth Generation Systems calls a “unique cross-domain drag-and-drop interface” to allow users “to quickly and easily create their own personal Web pages.”
Fifth Generation Systems claims that those who use social networks want an even greater ability to customize their personal web pages than they currently have. According to Jim McNeil, CEO of Fifth Generation Systems, “Our research has show that Web users want more freedom to fully express themselves online. Zude enables people to finally use the Web to express what they want, how they want, to whom they want. No templates needed, no profiles required, no code to write.”
Zude’s path to the future has been a little rocky. It raised $5 million in VC funding at the time of its private beta rollout in May – and quickly discovered it couldn’t stand up to the huge demand. So it closed its site, regrouped, improved its capacity, and relaunched a few months later.
If the reviews are to be believed, you really can drag anything from the web or even your desktop onto your Zude page, provided that the site isn’t blocking Zude. Zude’s technology takes the item dragged and puts it in a container. The user can then edit the item to act in various ways based on how other users interact with it, such as clicking on it or mousing over it.
One more thing worth noting before we go to the site itself to see what it has to offer – and it’s interesting that only one reviewer mentioned this, Candace Lombardi from Webware. “The drag-and-drop feature that allows you to add objects to your pages will not work at all unless you make a pop-up exception for the site and download the software.”
There may be some confusion on this point, or Zude might have updated its technology since Lombardi did her review. When I finally started creating my Zude page, I did not have to download any special software. I did have to make some changes to my browser, however, which I will note when I get to the relevant section. This article will mostly cover the kind of help Zude offers to help you use their interface; it’s not immediately as easy to use as they would like you to believe.
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