Something I’ve been reading a lot about recently is the idea of social network aggregators. Similar in concept to news and blog aggregators, these apps allow users to manage their various social networking accounts in one place. On the surface, this seems like a great solution for someone who maintains an active Web presence spread across multiple networks. But if you dig a little deeper, you realize that it might not be that simple.

ag·gre·gate (ăg’rĭ-gĭt)
n.
1. A total considered with reference to its constituent parts; a gross amount: “An empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head” (Edmund Burke).
v. tr.
1. To gather into a mass, sum, or whole.

I keep profiles on MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, YouTube, and, more recently, Bebo, LinkedIn, and aNobii: all social networks. And I have to admit, it’s a pain to keep up with seven different user names and passwords. How simple it would be to have one place to log in where I could check up on all my networks. But there are a couple of problems.

1. Diluting the Experience
   When you remove yourself from the individual interfaces of each service, you run the risk of removing yourself from participation. Your social network aggregator will homogenize your experience and become just another news reader. Instead of reading the news of the world, you’ll be reading the news of your friends, without adding to the conversation.
2. Crossing the Streams
   Say you’ve got a music profile on MySpace, a business profile on LinkedIn, and a personal profile on Facebook. These are three distinct aspects of your personality that you probably don’t want to mix. Or at the very least, you’d like to keep your business life separate. If all of your social networks are aggregated, a prospective employer or a fan of your music might be turned off by something they find there. There’s something to be said about segregating the various aspects of your life.
3. Who Aggregates the Aggregators?
   What is MySpace? It’s an aggregator. You can have your music, your blog, your photos, and your friends all under the same umbrella. And the killer function of MySpace is the ability to share all your cool stuff with your friends. If you use a platform like Spokeo to manage your social networking accounts, chances are you’ll have something cool on Friendster you want to share with your MySpace buddy. So you invite him to join Spokeo, and then you’ve turned your aggregator into a social network. Since there will never be a universal social networking platform (some like MySpace, some like Facebook, etc.), the impulse to bring them all to one interface is misguided. You’ll just keep creating networks once removed and on and on down the slippery slope.

What I’m saying is, the dynamic, participatory nature of social networks precludes easy aggregation. So with all these conversations at our fingertips, what can we do to help organize it all? Start with your browser.

My browser of choice is Firefox, and I have my bookmark toolbar set up with a “Daily Stops” folder with links to all of my networks. Firefox will also manage my various passwords, taking that hassle out of my hands. So checking in on each profile is as simple as clicking seven links. It’s pretty easy.

Every developer in the world has their eyes peeled for the Next Big Thing, and some think that social network aggregation is where it’s at. But even though it looks great on paper, doesn’t mean that it’s a great idea.

If you read One Thing New regularly, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been short on the posts this week. Well, the new look of the blog is the reason for that. I liked my old theme a lot, but it was a little raggedy around the edges. And since eventually I want to be able to point to this blog as part of my resume, I decided to spruce things up a bit.

Not only does the site look different, but the content is also going to change a bit. I’m not going to do Top Five Fridays anymore, and you’ll probably see a lot less of the YouTube-centric posts. My efforts will be focused on Web technologies and how they affect, improve, and in some cases, hinder your every day life.

Not to worry, though. I plan to add a supplemental tumblelog where I can post stuff that doesn’t quite fit One Thing New’s tighter focus.

I want to thank everyone who has stopped by in the last three months. I hope you’ll stick around and see where the blog goes from here.

Wednesdays are for two things in my life: Lost and comic books. Tonight I’m going to give the latter some love by reviewing a Web 2.0 comic book site called ComicVine.

At its heart ComicVine is a massive, user-created database of comic book information. They offer sections for members to write bios of their favorite characters, write reviews of current and back issues, participate in forums, and customize their profile page. On your profile page, you can add a photo gallery and a blog (reminded me of Gimme20’s profile features). And as with all social networking sites, you have a friends list to maintain. ComicVine hits all the high points of the Web 2.0 experience, but they have some unique features, too.

Since time began, comics fans have loved debating who would win in a fight between their favorite heroes and villains. Hulk versus Superman, Superman versus Flash, Batman versus Captain America, and on and on. Well, ComicVine has a feature that lets you vote on the outcome of those types of battles, and the winners are ranked on a list of most powerful characters. Right now, Superman is #1 (and Red Sonja is #4… one of the pitfalls of user-generated content, I suppose). If you have trouble deciding if Wonder Woman could beat Martian Manhunter in a fight, you can always pose the question in the forums where you’ll have dozens of folks ready to debate. It’s great fun.

Another unique feature of ComicVine is the ability to track your pull list on your profile page. Just visit the page for an issue of a comic you’d like to add to your list, and click a link to start tracking it.

I’ve been a member of ComicVine for several months (my handle is hooley21 if you want to look me up), but I’m still discovering new features. It is an amazing and essential resource for any comic book fan with an Internet connection.

And now it’s time to go watch Lost.

Time for a little roundup of some loose ends rattling around my brain these days. But first I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be taking Sundays off from posting starting yesterday. I’m getting some more freelance work, and I’m going to dedicate most of my weekends to that for the near future. Now, on to a Monday Night Grab Bag!

1. Joost
Last week I got my beta invitation for Joost, and I’ve been playing around with it some. For those who don’t know, Joost is a new Web 2.0 company that has created an application for streaming television on your computer. As opposed to the majority of Web 2.0 apps, which use your Web browser to push their user interface, Joost is a program you have to download and run locally. Another innovation of Joost is their adoption of a peer to peer back end for distributing the server load of their streaming content.

So far, it’s worked really well for me. I think I was one of the first couple of rounds of the OS X beta testers, and the program is a little buggy. Also, besides MTV, BET, and Comedy Central, there aren’t many channels of recognizable programming. I know that CBS just signed a contract to supply content, and I’m sure other networks will follow suit. But for now, there isn’t a lot on that struck my fancy.

If Joost takes off, I think we’ll start to see a lot more of these hybrid client apps that run on your desktop with Web 2.0 functionality. And on a related topic…

2. Adobe Apollo
Adobe has released a new runtime environment and SDK for developing applications that could run a lot like Joost using traditionally Web-only programming languages (HTML, Javascript, Flash, etc.). I haven’t downloaded it to check it out yet, but Apollo and Microsoft’s Silverlight could set the stage for the next Web revolution. Or they could fizzle. Time will tell.

And speaking of fizzling…

3. The Web 2.0 Bubble
I subscribe to Mashable, a blog that covers news and trends in social networking sites. It’s an excellent blog, but every day I’m amazed by stories they cover of some new Web 2.0 startup getting funding for letting users share pictures of their cats or some such thing. It reminds me a lot of the last days of the Web 1.0 boom during which investors were throwing money at any- and everything that had .com at the end of it. The recent buzz around twitter, a fairly useless one-trick pony with a funny name and some shiny graphics, has me worried. Could twitter be the death knell of Web 2.0? I can only hope investors and entrepreneurs are wiser this go around.

So there you have a few things I’ve been thinking about recently. Looks like I’ve got some waiting and seeing to do. I’ll keep you posted down the road.

I was perusing digg this evening, and I came across this article about color choice and on screen readability. According to the study, Times Roman italic in green on a light yellow background (sound familiar?) is the optimal combination from a readability standpoint. Choosing a good color scheme for your site isn’t just necessary to facilitate reading; it’s also important to pick colors that reflect the meaning and intention of your site.

If you’re bringing a pre-existing brand to your Web site, you should chose colors consistent with your logo, signage, letter head, business cards, etc. Your purpose for creating your Web site is to extend your brand, and if you go off on a color tangent on your Web site, it will be harder to maintain your brand identity from the real world to the virtual one.

If you are creating a brand from scratch on your site, choosing color goes hand in hand with establishing a brand identity. You’ll have to consider which colors best reflect your brand, if you want your color palette to be muted or bold, how many colors to use (too few is boring, too many is confusing), and how to combine those colors to best express your message.

Selecting your color scheme is an extremely subjective task, and it’s different for every business. So, rather than a step-by-step tutorial about color picking, I’ve put together a list of online resources that can guide you through the process.

1. Complete Color Matching Guide
   This site is about as comprehensive a list of color resources as I’ve ever seen. Of particular interest are the links to articles about the meanings, symbolism, and psychology of colors. For instance, did you know that yellow can represent intelligence or that different shades of green can mean anything from peace to jealousy. It’s fascinating.
2. 10 Tools to help you select a Web 2.0 Color Palette
   As the title says, this is a blog post with a great list of online tools for creating Web 2.0 color schemes. My favorite is ColorBlender.
3. COLOURLovers
   I haven’t even scratched the surface of exploring this site yet. From their About page: “COLOURlovers is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.” The article that brought me to this site is an excellent analysis of the color palettes of Grammy-winning album covers. COLOURLovers looks like an incredible resource for designers of all kinds.
4. ColorZilla
   ColorZilla is a Firefox plugin that lets you pull colors from any Web page you’re visiting. I certainly wouldn’t advocate lifting entire color schemes from other people’s sites, but if you come across a shade of blue that you really like, this tool makes it easy to grab it. In the past if I wanted to do that, I’d take a screen shot of the browser and use the dropper tool in Photoshop or GIMP to get the color. This plugin is much easier.
5. Hex Hub HTML Color Codes
   I’ve posted this link before, but it is my go-to resource for picking colors. As much as I love the widgets that let you slide a bar or scroll around a color wheel to pick a scheme, there’s something about being able to see every color available on one page that is easier for me. A lot of times, I’ll find a shade of the color that I like on the Hex Hub, and I’ll take it to one of those automatic color schemers to flesh out the palette. Nonetheless, I use this site all the time.

Choosing colors is such a fundamental part of creating any sort of design project that a lot of folks, I think, take for granted how important it is. I hope these resources point you in the right direction when it’s time to develop your site’s color palette.