Monday, March 05, 2007

Explode - a new, open social network


Just signed up for Explode and have my very own URL, dorion.

The sign up process was pretty brutal. It should have been easy, but a number of things went wrong.

Explode sign-up seems simple enough, but it has a few catches.





Your name: is actually going to be your username. However, I entered my First Last name, which, with the space removal they snuck into the mix and grabbing the first letter of my last name, became the equivalent of, firstl. Now try to log in if you don't know that.

I check my email and find the message. Nicely addressed to me with my name as I entered it. No sign of the username they're hiding somewhere for me.



Now they sneak the username on me. They tell me I can change it, but, after a number of tries later on, I give up and regsiter again with "Your name" as "dorion".


Of course, they only let you register one account per email. It appears your email address is actually the unique identifier. So, I use a different email address and this one, of course, ends up having the spam filter trap the registration email. A few minutes later, I find the trapped email, deliver it, and I'm on my way.

I was able to configure the widget and get it on my blog. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but this is pretty raw stuff. It is a bit odd that every time I return to my home page it tells me about the widget, how to get the code and fill in my profile. I've done all that; why do they keep taunting me.



Well, I can already see some stats from my new widget on my blog. Sadly, all the traffic is me checking it out, but the data gets there pretty fast.

I'll have to check it out tomorrow to see what else I can discover.

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