Roll A Name - Networking Wannabe

Roll A Name is a new social networking site currently in beta testing. The idea is that users can benefit by gaining visibility and using “shameless” self promotion. As with any other run-of-the-mill networking site, Roll A Name members can create profiles, add friends, set preferences and so on. According to the site, users can also promote anything that interests them from favorite movies to websites. My question is: “Is there room for one more marginal social networking site on the Web?”

The site is simple - I will say that for the designers. I found the signup to be snappy and the user interface is also very clear and discoverable. All the familiar “bells and whistles” are present that should be save one: “What point of pain does Roll A Name solve?” Why would anyone at any other viable network want to switch to Roll A Name? I remember the first time I heard this term in a chat with Marty Wells CEO of Tangler. If a startup cannot resolve or relieve some such pain point then its business plan is flawed. The site follows the familiar pattern of form fills and uploads to accomplish filling a database essentially.

Simple is simple to show in one screen!

This site is a “roll of the dice” in the direction of investors in my opinion. I just don't see how giving up all your contacts' via email import or request is going to help anyone promotes anything other than the site. This is especially true in the short term while RAN has so few contributors. There simply has to be more value behind a network than the information of the people who make it up, or else we are just building simple databases on the Web.

I hate beating up startups (I almost said innovation), but telling it like it is helps developers more than unrealistic praise. The design of this site will sell if anything does, but the business model and vision are limited in scope and practicality. I can't decide if this service wants to be LinkedIn or Adlandpro when it grows up in all sincerity.

If Roll A Name could integrate an external people search engine onto their current platform, then the service might do well. A real Web 2.0 community is interactive, fun, diverse, flexible and ultimately usable. A good networking site is user-centric and not necessarily a popularity contest as will be the case with Vasily Klimko's new social parody entry into the world of Web 2.0.

A better understanding of what social networking involves (especially) would help this network considerably. A clarification of this is that: “Social networking does not equal spam of any kind”, which is where Roll A Name is headed in my opinion. Roll A Name raises the question of ethics: “How can you call a friend a friend if you are trying to win a popularity contest against them?” There is no value in popularity save for the most popular in a network. How does the average user fair in such a system? All other major social networks give an equal chance to users based or the quality of the content not the name of the submitter, at least this is true ideally. I don't know where this leaves Roll A Name, but I know it is not at the top of the social networking framework.