The Long Rambling Introduction
Or why another social networking platform?
It’s been 7 weeks since I deleted my Facebook account. My original reasons stand: most sharing was just noise and I don’t trust Facebook with my data. I’ve had a couple of twinges during that time but haven’t really missed it and have culled a few other social networks as well. My Twitter usage has increased but that’s a very different beast.
The downside of losing Facebook is that I can’t share with family and close friends nor can I contribute to a couple of company pages. The latter I can live with, the former is more of an issue.
I’ve been using Path (review here) which I really like and use a lot. But Path is lonely. I only have 5 contacts and only 2 of them really connect with me through it (my wife and mum). That makes it a nice diary but not much of a social app. I think this will be an ongoing issue – Facebook is ubiquitous, few people want to keep up more than one or two social networks and Path only works on iPhone and Android. Regrettably I don’t see a long-term future for myself in Path.
Everyme
Everyme is a brand new app that launched Wednesday. It’s a social network based on your phone’s address book aimed at helping you connect with your most important relationships. It’s been described as a cross between Path for its intimate networking and visual style, and Google+ for its use of circles (discrete groups of contacts). For me the kicker is that you can share with anyone in your phone’s address book whether they use Everyme or not – if they don’t have Everyme it will send a nicely formatted email or text message.
When you sign up and link to your Facebook, Twitter or Linked In accounts, Everyme searches your address book and automatically groups your contacts into circles based on location, relationships, etc. Not being on Facebook and having few Twitter or Linked In contacts in my address book, this turned into a non-event for me, although others have reported good success. Fortunately it’s easy enough to create, add and edit circles and I only want this for family anyway. Upon sign-up Everyme emphasise that they don’t upload your address book to their servers, so no (or fewer) privacy concerns.
Your circles appear on the start page and you simply choose one of them to share a message, photo or location with. If a recipient has Everyme it shows up there, if they don’t they can still reply from the email or text message. I don’t know if this is a ‘reply all’ feature or just back to the sender. If recipients don’t want to receive emails from you they can opt-out with the usual email unsubscribe feature.
Everyme can pull ‘Magic Stories’ from your linked social networks and display them in your circles’ streams (you can switch this on and off) although I have no idea how it decides what is magic. Everyme is being smart by playing nice with the big boys. It will never post to a linked account like Facebook which may be good or bad depending on your view.
It’s a simple app. The photos don’t have filters like Path does. Apart from managing circles, the only customisation is a header photo in each of your circles, although the default images are very pleasing.
Privacy & Children
I presume this is one of the most secure social networks. Your contacts stay on your phone, not on Everyme’s servers. Your Everyme account and data are in the cloud, but basically you can only connect with people whose email or phone number you have on your phone and thus in all likelihood, people you know. Although the terms state users must be 13 and over I really can’t see an issue with a child using this on an iPod touch (presumably most children under 13 won’t have an iPhone!). They simply cannot connect with strangers through the app.
Improvements
So what would I like to see added? Photo filters would be nice, even if it’s just a clarify button. I’d like a way to post to multiple circles as well – there are times I want to broadcast something more widely to my contacts. Failing that, an easy way to create new merged groups would be useful.
Currently it’s iPhone only but presumably that will change soon.
Assessment
I’ve read a few reviews and it’s being called a glorified group messaging app, a competitor to Path even a competitor to iMessage. I really don’t get the last reference, I think some people are just ignorant or jaded. Interestingly, as I understand it, the founder of Path has helped fund Everyme, so we’ll see if that has any implications but I would consider them competitors. It’s certainly more than a messaging app, although if you really want you can use it as such. Given geeks who have a gazillion social networking accounts write these reviews, I think they’re missing the point. Or at least the potential…
I’m a Facebook refugee. I want something simple that I can share with family and close friends regardless of their hardware or reluctance to sign up to another service. I want something that respects my privacy. Everyme does these things. It’s early days and I’m yet to see if it will really work for me, but I think it has great potential and I hope Everyme works out.
Round Up of Everyme Reviews
Since I’ve gone to the trouble of looking these up, here’s a list of the reviews I’ve read to date.
