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Streamy is?
Tuesday, 18 September 2007 — by Wayne Smallman
I just do not get Streamy. In its current form, Streamy is in no way any simpler or easier than having Pownce, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Digg open in different tabs in Firefox…
I’m trying to make the best of it, but I just cannot see one solitary reason for Streamy to exist.
Of the people I know who use Streamy, they can say only good things. So here I sit, wearing my SMO & SMM (Social Media Optimization & Social Media Marketing) hat, trying my damnedest to see how Streamy is going to work for me.
Streamy is a shambles to use and most of my time is spent trying to find things. Nothing is obvious, the layout is a mess and there’s no sense of task-based structure.
When I compare Streamy to the likes of Pownce, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Digg, it’s pretty much a “me too!” affair that solves nothing, adds zero value and gives me nothing that I don’t already have.
So I get a ’stream’ of my stuff on del.icio.us, Twitter and Pownce. I can do that with Yahoo! Pipes with much more control and run it through Tumblr, creating something massively more useful – and meaningful from a personal narrative point of view – than what Streamy offers.
OK, so Yahoo! Pipes is a little more hands-on, but the power more than makes up for the learning curve.
Quite simply, Subscriptions is a list of the websites you like and wish to see a list of articles for. So essentially, it’s a feed reader. You get the option to import RSS feeds or OPML files directly. But why? Why there’s such a thing as Subscriptions in Streamy is a mystery.
Most people that would consider using Streamy will have some feed reader already. So what we end up with is a decision; do we keep our current workflow, or start using Streamy as a means of reading our feeds? For me, it’s not even a consideration, let alone a choice. I’ll be sticking with Firefox for my feeds.
I’ll keep playing around with Streamy for a while yet, but all Streamy does is make the whole problem of Social Network Fatigue (managing personal profiles) even worse than it already is.
I have friends elsewhere, typically scattered across the other Social Media websites I’m signed up with. So having something like Streamy that has its own friends feature just deepens my frustration.
For the amount of hype that’s surrounded Streamy – and with all the respect in the world – for those that think Streamy is better than Digg, Pownce, StumbleUpon and Twitter, I seriously have to wonder if these people are using those other websites properly.
There is nothing close to original or even remotely utilitarian about Streamy. It is entirely derivative, and if you’re anything like me – often sifting through feeds, emails, messages from friends on various Social Networks – then Streamy is just going to make matters worse.
I know my words must seem quite harsh, but I’m annoyed with Streamy because this is precisely the kind of thing that’s turning people off Social Media and Social Networking…
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Wayne,
Your comparison to Streamy seems to focus on the following products:
Pownce, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Digg
For me, Streamy is a new breed of real-time aggregator. While it certainly covers features of those other sites, none of them attempt to be an RSS reader, which is at the core of Streamy, and none of them have true real-time interaction or the web-OS like interface.
What is cool and interesting about Streamy to me is that I can read news and blogs as I have in other readers in the past, but now I’m able to share and discuss them in real-time on the site. There are shortcuts and an intuitive interface that allow me to read quickly and efficiently.
While not perfect, it has certainly replaced all other RSS readers for me and once it has IM integration with AIM and Gtalk I’ll be ditching meebo as well. I’m not sold on replacing Pownce/Twitter yet, and not being able to add just a URL limits comparison to SU/Digg, so at least for now I can add my accounts on those sites so it’s still aggregated together in my Streamy profile.
I’m certainly suffering from social-web burnout as well with all the new sites cropping up, one interesting thing about Streamy though is that just by reading content and participating in groups I’m building my profile. Actually inputting data for it is very minimal which I like.