Flavors.me first launched in February 2010 as a simple, beautiful personal web platform that pulls together all of your digital identities like Facebook, Last.fm, Posterous, Netflix, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Blogger, Goodreads, Tumblr, Etsy, Foursquare, YouTube and WordPress on a simple splash page. For those without the desire or skills to create a personal website, it’s a no-brainer.
“I use Flavors.me as my main web presence. It acts as my central online identity and the place I point everyone to who wants to learn anything about me. Everyone has something worth promoting – yourself, your band, a new app, your restaurant. Flavors.me is equally as fitting for a personal homepage as it is for marketing your business.”
-Flavors.me CEO Jonathan Marcus
Today, the New York City based Flavors.me team has unveiled its momentous Flavors.me Version 2. The team has applied huge changes to its core system. You’ll notice you have more control over what content is displayed and total flexibility of how the content is visualized. For example, you can use either a panel or a column layout. In total, the new version offers 13 layouts (up from 9) and 200 different fonts. The fonts and their various sizes can be applied everywhere on the site.
Old layout:
New layout:
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Suddenly, the old layout reminds me of MySpace and the new layout is a breath of fresh air, if not a bit Tumblresque. The new UI features full-screen media galleries so that rich media, like high-resolution images and video look gorgeous. And for music buffs: Streaming audio is now available on your Flavors.me page from Hype Machine, Tumblr, SoundCloud, 8tracks and Bandcamp.
“My favorite part of the new Flavors is the way in which content is displayed – hi-res image galleries, interactive Foursquare maps, HD videos, etc.,” says Marcus.
Once you start playing around on Flavors.me, you’ll notice the biggest change of all: the ability to follow other people in the Social Stream. Flavors.me, Version 2.0 is a social network now, and a particularly cool one. Now you can keep up with all those interesting profiles in an aesthetically pleasing stream. It’s a refreshing breath of air after feeling tangled in the Facebook jungle. You can even control other people’s individual streams by toggling different services on and off. So, let’s say you think I tweet too much but you like my GoodReads updates; one click and you can block my Twitter updates while keeping my book recommendations. (N.B. Flavors.me is not currently pulling in your Google+ profile.)
One of the best aspects of the new site is that the social content comes up on the main screen instead of linking off. For example, if I link up my Twitter to Flavors.me and you click on my Twitter link, my recent Tweets will pop up instead of taking you to my Twitter homepage. You can also use the new Flavors.me to browse through your Flickr photos in a lightbox or thumbnail display. This creates a much more holistic and convenient experience. “It’s a photographer’s dream come true,” says Marcus.
The last big update to Flavors.me is that it’s now available on mobile. The new version allows people to turn on a special mobile layout for their site, specify the size of the title and description fonts that will appear on mobile, and even set a different background on mobile if they wish. “Prior to the new Flavors, our mobile version was nonexistent,” says Marcus.
Flavors.me is a freemium service so there are a couple of differences to note. First, the free version will only have access to 6 different layouts, while paid is 13. Second, users with the free version will only be able to add up to 5 services in their stream, while paid is unlimited. Lastly, the mobile specific layout is for paid users only.
Marcus says they are currently converting 7% of users to the paid version. At 750,000 total users, that means 52,500 are paying. And with a $20 annual fee that means the company (which is also behind the e-commerce service Goodsie) is pulling in $1.05 million per year with an additional $3 million in funding.
Watch this sweet video here on Flavors.me Social Streams featuring Theophilus London:
The new Flavors.me is a step in the right direction for social networks, but it’s in an extremely competitive space. Will its aesthetically pleasing features draw more eyes than just early adopters? Flavors.me Version 2 goes live at midnight. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Featured image: Shutterstock/Serg Zastavkin
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