Who needs a life, anyway?
Do we really need another social-networking service? Doesn’t Twitter, Facebook and Google+ give us all the tools we need to let people know what we’ve had for tea, or brag about how we’re loving our new iPhone 4S? Well, Bill Gross doesn't think so.The serial entrepreneur and CEO of UberMedia, creators of several popular social-networking apps, has launched Chime.in this week, the social-networking service that borrows ideas from the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and then gives it all a Digg-esque news site twist, while throwing in the lip-licking incentive of earning money for your posts.
Over the past couple of days, we’ve thrown ourselves into life in Chime.in to see what it’s all about and whether it has the same addictive qualities as some of its competitors. Let’s take a look.
Head over to Chime.in and you can sign-up via your Twitter and Facebook account. You click on the relevant icon on the main page and - giving Chime.in access to your precious accounts - it automatically drags in your profile icon from Facebook or Twitter and scans your friends' list to see who else might be on Chime.in – in our case, nobody has yet signed-up.
Disappointingly, it looks like this scanning of your contacts is as far as integration with these two popular social-network channels goes. We were hoping we’d see our Twitter and Facebook news feeds incorporated into Chime.in’s main page, which would have made it infinitely more attractive to seasoned networkers, but that’s not the case.
During the profile set-up you’re asked to choose from a variety of interests. Whereas on Facebook people are interested in your hobbies and more personal interests, Chime.in is much more about the wider picture, so you’re asked to choose between options as diverse as “Olympics,” “Marketing and Advertising” and “Celebrity Gossip.” There’s a huge list of interests you can add, so every base looks to be covered.
