Zude Pages and the Future of Social Networks - Final Thoughts and Caveats
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The interface is somewhat tricky for beginners. Once things start clicking, however, it's really eye-opening what you can do. If you like to experiment, you'll enjoy playing around with this site, especially if you're not afraid to push buttons, click on things, and drag and drop to see what happens. There is a lot more you can do with it, however. If you own your own business, you can not only set up links to the site from yours; you can practically drag and drop the whole thing onto Zude. But that's just one example.
The fact that you can make your pages public, private, or personal is very nice. Furthermore, you can add ratings to your pages as they do for the movies, to keep mature or adult content away from prying eyes (yes, they make a distinction between the two, and it's not just you rating it; the community can rate it as well). Your public pages can be seen by everyone, and might be a good place to show your interests, hobbies, or possibly your resume if you're job hunting. The private pages can be seen by just a few friends you designate; here you might have a blog that talks about your personal life or pictures from the last science fiction convention you went to. Only you can see your personal pages, which makes them a good place to put all of the things you like to check every time you get on the web: your web mail, feeds from your favorite news sites, and perhaps some web-related projects you're working on.
One of the most important positive aspects of Zude is that it offers a way to consolidate your entire web presence onto one site. Among other things, you get a URL that you can give to friends that takes them to your page; you can even use a URL that you already own, emphasizing Zude's basic nature as a web host. Putting everything in one place could be a massive time saver for active web users, especially those who belong to several social networks. Imagine updating several different sites from one page!
One real concern is that Zude makes copyright infringement online even easier than it already is. As one reviewer commented, that's going to be a matter for Zude's lawyers to figure out. If Zude catches on, it's possible that we'll see a lot more DMCA takedown notices than we do now. Viacom's lawsuit against Google and YouTube would be just the beginning.
The other major concern is the interface. Zude claims that it is easy enough for grandmas and kids to use. I'm sure that kids will figure it out, but Grandma might get frustrated unless she is both patient and tech savvy. I'd recommend persistence, because it is fun once you figure it out; however, I have to admit I had to call for help to get a better understanding of the interface. But yes, if Zude smooths out its interface and catches on, "revolutionary" might be the right word - at least as far as how its users feel it lets them relate to the Internet and to each other.
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