Who is the Coolest?

Social Networking is inherently competitive by nature. On Facebook, who has the greatest Mafia in Mafia Wars or the largest farm in Farmville. Don't forget about Tom on MySpace; I think the guy had "befriended" just about everyone. How many times have you looked at the number of friends someone has to decide how cool they were? This is all great, but it really doesn't mean too much, there is no winner, no top dog. Once again SomethingCoolHappened.com has decided to take the competition to the next level.

SomethingCoolHappened.com has created a concept called the Cool Factor. The cool factor is a super top secret formula that basically gives you points for posting, commenting, as well as points for how cool your avatar and posts are (decided by other users). There is more to the Cool Factor but since it is super top secret, I can't divulge any more information about it. Once you reach certain cool factor levels new content will be provided, such as new items for your avatar. Not only is this allowing you to compete with others to become the coolest, but also gives you a chance to compete with SomethingCoolHappened.com. Can you figure out how the Cool Factor is calculated? The most important thing about the Cool Factor is that there is truly a title holder, The Coolest!

Redefining Social Networking

What is social networking? Social networking has traditionally been the practice of gathering connections between individuals. The concept is simple, gather as much information as you can about someone, and then allow others with similar information to find that person, basically opening your whole life to the internet.

The current social networking scene is a cluttered environment that intends to capture different aspects of someone’s life. Just to name a few, LinkedIn focuses on your professional career, Facebook was designed to link you with individuals of similar backgrounds and interests, and MySpace seems to allow one to explore a more creative side. That being said, they all have one thing in common, they want to encapsulate as much information about you as possible to share with the world. Some would argue that if you put it out there, then you can’t complain when the information becomes available someplace else. This may be true, but so many of the social networking sites have a tendency to ask for the information in a way that does not really explain how it is going to be used and where it is going to be displayed. This is where somethingcoolhappened.com differs.

Somethingcoolhappened.com is designed to protect the anonymity of the users in a couple of different ways.

1. Your real name and email address is not displayed anywhere. You have a username and an alias, that is it.
2. Profiles are simple. Your profile lists basic information about you, your alias, age, country, and how long you have been a member. That is it.
3. To add someone as a connection you must either find their profile page or know their email address, no more open searches, like other social networking sites.

The concept of somethingcoolhappened.com is not to have a bunch of connections, but instead to upload cool happenings of the day, whether that is a photo, story or video. That isn’t all there is to the site, there is a pretty cool competition piece, and another area that will allow you to explore your creative side, but that is another discussion. Somethingcoolhappened.com has one goal; redefine the definition of social networking.

Something cool is coming

The social networking scene is cluttered with rumors lately. Will Facebook charge their users? Will Google release a “Google Me” platform? Will Google buy Twitter? Will MySpace be here next year? One of the smaller and more interesting rumors is of a new social networking experience releasing in the fall of 2010. I stumbled upon this site just the other day and immediately found rumors of it everywhere. The site is called Something Cool Happened. As you imagine the address is the same, www.somethingcoolhappened.com. But what is it you might ask? Well the site just has a teaser video right now, which may I say is quite intriguing. The video goes on to explain that this site will be a new social networking experience unlike anything we have seen. Whoever did the graphics for that video I say, “Bravo”. Very professional and the voice over is quite unique. After entering my email and clicking register I immediately received an email. The email explains that this site will have competition and creativity aspects as well as networking. Ok, sounds very cool but what do they mean? Whoever is developing this site is being very guarded with information. So off to Google I went. I searched www.somethingcoolhappened.com and found many rumors and chatter about it. If the rumors are true we will be able to interact with this site on many levels. One that struck me as “cool”, dare I say, was someone leaked that you will be able to create your own avatar in the site. Now I like that. Maybe it’s just me but I like fooling around with creations and coming up with something on my own for everyone to see. I did find a vague reference to the avatar creator on Facebook with reference to Something Cool Happened. One other aspect that intrigued me was a rumor I found that the premise of the site was to allow you to post cool happenings in your life or the lives of someone you may know. There seems to be three avenues to accomplish this. You can post a video, a picture or write a story. Awesome! This is like having YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all in one place with the added ability to be creative with a custom avatar.

Needless to say I am beyond interested and am looking forward to the fall release. We’ll see if this promise bears fruit but if the rumors are true it should be a very interesting fall.