Sometimes the web can seem to split down the middle — early adopters on one end, and average users on the other. I step back to see this, and realize the immense challenges designers and developers face when creating a new social service or web site.
It has taken a while for social media and platforms like Facebook and Twitter to completely saturate the mainstream — and our lives. No matter what “side” of the web divide you’re on, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re signed up for more than one social network, and it becomes a challenge to find a way to aggregate the information in an elegant way. Flavors.me has managed to do this.
When I needed a hub for people to find me, I turned to the “DIY virtual business card” school of thought, bought a domain and built a jump page for all of my contact info that will be there no matter what. For anyone who doesn’t have the time or know-how to do so, it can be a bit frustrating to get something similar set up.
Pull it together! Er, your web presence, that is.
While there are many social aggregator options out there, not many create a unique space for you. Most have the look of just any other profile site, and if that’s your thing — go for it. Flavors.me was taken out of beta yesterday, and it does both a pretty good job at aggregating my profiles strewn across the Internet and allows for customization that any level of user can take on.
Flavors.me is such a simple and clean way to pull your online presence together. Not only is it quick to set up, but you can be utterly terrible at design, and still wildly succeed at making your Flavors.me page look great.
Take a look at the video below, or you can check my profile out here.
Since this video was made, they have added many more services you can pipe in, including: Flickr, Facebook, Last.fm, Posterous, Netflix, LinkedIn, Blogger, Goodreads, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, WordPress, Tumblr, Etsy, and RSS. The default option is free, but a premium option is available as well, with added options like a contact form in your page, use of your own domain name, and integration of real time statistics.
If it’s your own domain name you’re worried about (and you host your own) well, there are easy ways to get around that — a masked redirect being the easiest. As for the contact form, keep in mind that you can add links to your About section, even a mailto for your email. If you don’t have your own web hosting, I suggest you jump onto Flavors.me.
Between the great selection of services you can feed into Flavors.me and the extremely simple customization options, it would make an awesome contact page (or lifestreamer, or microsite) for anyone, especially those without domains of their own. I really think that’s the key in winning the online space — ease of use for everyone.
It’ll take you all of 10 minutes to set yours up. Go ahead, your web presence will be beautiful in no time.
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