Connections Wiki
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Welcome to the Connections Wiki mini wiki at Wikia.
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Contents |
[edit] Vision
This is a wiki for exploring where social networking can go once it is freed from particular websites. This means OpenSocial, WikiWidgets, and related technologies, along with the semantic web and microformats that let you search more powerfully. This is about being able to connect to geeks in Kuala Lumpur, yogis in Reykjavik, knitters in Dallas, people in Sydney's inner west who are into green technology, people from around the world who are into your specific narrow interest, conferences in a certain country about a certain topic, or events in your city tonight.
(Sorry I haven't put in the links yet, but Google and Wikipedia will answer your basic questions. This is a a side-project for me, and I'd be more than happy to merge it into a more serious effort.)
[edit] The old vision
It only recently dawned on me that networking is going to be freed from networking sites. The rest of the page describes my original vision.
The Connections Wiki was envisaged as a wiki that connects you to people in your area or around the world, by interest and/or location - e.g. search for geeks in Kuala Lumpur, yogis in Alexandria, knitters in Dallas or people in Sydney's inner west who are into green technology, or people from around the world who are into your specific narrow interest. It is a bit like WiserEarth but unlimited in scope (not just green stuff), and with the flexibility of a wiki.
The vision is to help you:
- Find local groups and activities that interest you.
- Get off the computer and meet people in the real world
Long term goals include:
- Keep in touch with friends
- Search for people by very specific criteria, and make new friends that you really have something in common with.
[edit] What, another networking site?
There is no other site that serves this purpose, though there are some that serve some parts. In particular, finding people locally is very poorly served at the moment.
[edit] What can I find here?
Information on particular kinds of events, networks, and ways of connecting, in particular with groups and people in your area.
[edit] What is planned
To work properly, this wiki will need Semantic MediaWiki.
To most effective in the long term, this project would serves some of the functions of:
- Social networking sites.
- Unlike facebook, you can see anyone's profile (unless there's a "Private" setting, and they want to use it).
- Hopefully we'll find a way to let people transfer information between this site and other social networking sites. Will Google's OpenSocial help? (What's still missing is a way to do a single search for people, on a single site. Perhaps as things get more sophisticated, Google's OpenSocial APIs will enable this kind of thing - so we could search in Google for people who matched our criteria. Or will Wikia Search do it?)
- Meetups. Once we the information and network here, it is far easier if we can organize meetings on this wiki rather than going elsewhere - and it's also free. The messaging, forums etc are doable hard on Wikia, but what about the email update functions? There is an "email this user" function, but is there a way of automating this for those who join certain groups on the wiki?
- Dating sites. However, there will be a strict policy of not making overt "dating" oriented approaches to people who are marked as not being here for dating.
