Beyond FB, Insta and Twitter: Four little known social media sites you should check out
The social media experience has been monopolised by the holy trinity of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram these past few years. However there’s a good chance that a lot of you good people on the internet have grown bored of this triumvirate.
Perhaps you’re looking for a more personalised experience, or you want your social media interactions to be based on certain similar interests. Or maybe you are just tired of receiving friend requests and being followed by people you don’t like but have to entertain.
Whatever the case may be, here are a few nifty social media platforms that could help you move beyond FB, Instagram, and Twitter.
Ello
Things aren’t the same as they used to be on social media, with the likes of Facebook promoting sponsored content at the cost of personally relevant information. While that may not be a malicious action if it’s with commercial intent, nobody likes the idea that their privacy is being compromised.
This is where Ello steps in. Launched in 2014 by American entrepreneur Paul Budnitz, Ello promises to keep your information private and provide a completely ad-free experience.
The critically acclaimed social media site has often been termed the ‘anti-Facebook’ and is a good alternative for creative people looking to connect and collaborate. Although the app is yet to take off in a big way, Ello is turning into a great platform for digital artists.
“The conversation on Ello is more spare, and more positive,” says Denver based artist Kate Havekost, according to Wired.com.
“It’s more conducive to individual creators sharing work that they’re making, and giving each other feedback about that work.”
Vebbler
Vebbler was initially meant to be a platform for text-based interaction back when it was founded by Indian entrepreneur Sahil Bhagat in 2013. After feedback from users indicated that ease of communication was enhanced through visual content, it has now morphed into an image sharing platform.
In its current avatar, Vebbler is a more private version of Instagram, wherein the user creates exclusive groups for image sharing. The company has recently received an investment of $0.5 million as it looks to build on the base of the 50,000 people who’ve downloaded the app on Google Play.
Vebbler is a good option if you want to maintain online photo albums accessible to only a select audience.
Google+
The sleeping giant of social media, Google+ has failed to match up to Facebook despite over one billion downloads on Google Play. Despite the numerous makeovers and tweaks, this is one Google product that people just can’t seem to get behind.
In fact Google has even drawn criticism for trying to influence people to sign up for Google+ using popular e-mail portal Gmail.
Google+ has its merits though. It offers very similar features and is a less advertisement packed and more organised and neat looking alternative to Facebook.
Rinema
Social media is all about interaction, and one of the topics that most people love interacting about is movies. Rinema was launched in 2013 as a social media platform for all the film buffs and cinema addicts. One of the primary objectives was to create a website similar to Goodreads, but with the focus on films rather than books.
Rinema requires you to rate at least 20 films after signing up, and then generates a list of people with similar tastes. After this is done, you can rate new films, share reviews, and exchange suggestions with like-minded cinema lovers.
The internet continues to expand each passing moment, but it seems like our individual desire to explore and experiment is slowly diminishing. The popular social networking sites may boast of millions of active users, but there are unexplored websites which could end up providing a much more wholesome and satisfactory experience.
So if you find that your current social networking setup isn’t fulfilling your needs, then you need to explore the farthest corners of the internet to find what you seek. Or you can check out the sites we just listed.
