Is Zurker Just Another Social Network Wannabee?

It seems that social networks are popping up all over the place on the internet these days. Myspace, LinkedIn and Friendster were the former monoliths until Facebook received around a 100 million users, then it exploded to the point with an impending IPO worth billions. Most likely an IPO that will be the biggest in US history. In the last 12 months in 2011, Google started a social network and has seen some great growth early on. Whether that continues, time will tell.

There are still many differing networks around and Facebook is not allowed in China and South Korea and Russia have their own networks more popular than Facebook for now.

In December 2011, a new kid on the block emerged within the social network scene, with a few difference and some plans on how it wishes to operate and remain, unique. Will people flock to this new burgeoning network like they have to Google+. Time will only tell.

Nick Oba was part of the team that launched Qassia in 2008, which later sold off to investors ended up with a name change to Qondio in 2010. A content creation site, it is an interesting site that allows you to link in your websites (with a preview) to the base of your written and published articles. Yet your articles are not published until they have been rated and peer reveiwed by 7 other members of the site.

Nick Oba, (with others) have become involved with an even bigger project. Create a social network similar to Facebook, Linked-In, Myspace, Friendster et al. But with a few differences. That being during the alpha and beta phase, provide virtual shares or vShares to your members and have them own the content they produce on the member owned network.

I will tell you that again, the owners of Zucker are you, the active members. The material you put up, your photos, videos, comments, documents, everything you produce. Is owned by you, not Zucker.

Since this is a new concept, vShares, need a little explaining on how they work and what it means if you become a member of the network on Zucker. If you do decide to become a member, read all the privacy statements and terms of service first BEFORE joining.

A vShare, or virtual share is thus, “vShares can be thought of as agreements between the owners of a startup about the size of their stake in the enterprise to be incorporated. One vShare equals one-millionth of a piece of the company. Users can earn vShares by signing up, and by inviting friends; they can also purchase them. “When 1,000,000 vShares have been allocated, Zurker will be restructured as a public corporation and vShares will become real shares,”as it explains on it's Zucker vShares page.

The Zucker site is treated as 8 different entities on the internet as regions. This is known as the 'Friendster Hangover', where that social network is not popular in many places except the Phillipines where it really shines, but the owners struggle on how to monetize the site. Because Friendster is a US owned company, they are not sure how that local region in the Phillipines may or may not benefit. Hence a philosophy of localized appeal.

So although I'm Australian and I have x number of vShares in the Australian 'region' if I gain shares through others joining other countries, Im not a vShare holder in that country, only in Australia. So far, there are Zurker projects in the United States, United Kingdom, India, the Philippines, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia; there's also a Zurker Worldwide, for all other jurisdictions. Note that this does not affect the way you interact with others from different regions. Given that when 1 million vShares are allocated in each region, Zucker states in its terms that those shares will then become a public company and restructure so those vShares become real to the share holders.

There are potential issues that can happen as well, Australia is a small country so it may never allocate all one million shares. But given that vShares can also be purchased at AU$1.00 per share currently, one can purchase more than a single vShare at a time. The maximum of 500 shares per membership is the cieling of vShares ownnership at this time.

Since it is also a company and website in beta, the operators may decide it is never going to fulfill its potential unless they can 'sell' the network to interested investors, therefore, it may never convert the vShares into real ones.

At the moment, since the site is in a closed beta one can only join via direct invitation (see the join link below if you wish to join).

Join Here - Please note, I do get one vShare for each person that joins through my invitation. But so do you for each person that joins through your invitation.

At this time, there is a plan to open to the public in April 2012. So the process is not too disimilar to how Google+ started. An individual can only at any time have a single, one of individual account. It is against the terms of services to attempt or to hold, more than a singular Zurker account

To begin, join through my invite above and follow the process as outlined. You are asked to include your Account name, an email address, you can add more emails later, create an access password, add an avatar from a http address or upload a photo and add a short bio about yourself.

The second part of the signup allows you to add points of interest about yourself, the hobbies you like, the books you read, music, movies, business interests, such as maybe what you do for a living or professional interests, schools and universities attended, club memberships and the like. You get to type in these fields rather than preselect from drop down lists.

Some patience is required here as if you need to come back to either of these forms if they are incomplete, you need to re-upload your photo, refill some sections such as your email address and sometimes some random fields you previously filled out are now blank.

Remember, the site is in Beta, so it is still ironing out the bugs.

You will notice almost straight away when you go to your wall that someone 'liking' a comment you write or you 'liking' someone else's comment is known as a 'zurk'. A zurk can be either a like or dislike depending on the context of comment I feel. I may shoot through a message as a suggestion to the site operators to be able to 'dis-zurk' or 'unzirk' comments.

You can connect with other members with a connect request, but it is a two way street, you are both not 'friends' with each other until you have either accepted a request or the other has confirmed your friend request. You can also create brand new, or connect to existing friend category 'tag' for those connections so you can keep your friends lists different, similar to Google+ circles of friends lists. Others don't know what category of friend they have become tagged under, only you know this.

One item that is a little different is also, similar to Twitter, others can subscribe to your feeds, this works in the sense of people can 'follow' you like on Twitter, but you and the other are not friends. This is an attempt to stop signup spam and to have people just signup willy nilly to a new burgeoning site.

The Home button (top right)- Is your account home can you can see your fiends list, comments, and also see what is happening on the Street button (other friends comments like form their wall) and from the Home button, which are comments and personal messages sent from your friends direct to your wall or profile.

The Update Button - Is a list of all your personal wall messages you have written, whether it be half a dozen words, to a novel.

The Photo Button - Self explanatory

The Finds Button - This is the sites name for sharing web links. Or they can be pictures, videos, news stories, blog entries, and so on. These are also available for other members who can zurk or comment on your posts, photos, video and other finds.

Convo's - Convos (i.e. conversations) are Zurker's equivalent of private messaging or email. You can start a convo with just one other member or several. Only those involved in the convo will know about it. You can attach files to your convo, and more features are coming in the future.

When you are viewing someone else's profile, depending on that users restrictions, you can post a message on their wall. Also others can see what you have posted and comment themselves, unless certain users cannot see your comment. Wall notes are more casual than convo's as they can be posted on anyones wall that allows it, even if you are not friends with that individual.

Entities - Are a page attached to an account and can be treated as a 'seperate' page. Its not in operation at this time and its expected a purchase of $1 is required first before creating a entity page. An Entity page will allow for pages for music groups, bands, movie makers, companies, promotional pages, organizations, movements, user grousp, etc. YOu can subscriebe or join a friendship with these pages just like individual pages.

There are other aspects of the site I may have forgotten to mention or that may become operational and added to be part of the site after this article was written, hence errors and ommissions are not intentional but expected.

Is Zucker a scam, or pipe dream, or something revolutionary? Do you join or do you sit by the sidelines until the site improves?

Only time will tell and it has taken Facebook 8 years to get to the point of its IPO.