2. You know the drill by this point, signup, verify, login. Nothing really new, though it’s interesting to note you need to be 13 years of age or older to use Ratepoint (most likely due to the adult nature of some of the sites being rated).

3. After logging in for the first time I’m given the option to take a tour of the place or get down to business. I appreciate the option of learning more about the site, but these days I’m the tour guide so I skip ahead of the line and get right to business.

4. My next step in the process of logging in (and yes there are a few steps apparently) is to add friends. Unfortunately I can’t think of anyone who likes me enough to add them at the moment so I’m skipping this step.

5. Ratepoint has the ability to import links from del.icio.us and apply mass ratings to them all. Though I was getting rather annoyed by all the steps of logging in for the first time I do really enjoy this feature since it will fill my account up nicely right off the start. Ratings have to be applied as a group to the whole import, which is hopefully something that could be resolved in later releases, though it’s not a huge deal since most of my bookmarks are sites I enjoy so a 5 will do nicely.

6. After giving me del.icio.us user information I’m notified that it will take up to 30 minutes for my bookmarks to appear in Ratepoint. That’s somewhat annoying since the process should be pretty immediate, but it’s not as annoying as the fact that 3 screens in I still haven’t reached the main landing page for Ratepoint and now I’m requested to give even more information. I should note that all of the information being requested in these screens is available through the Tools and Profile page of the Ratepoint site. It seems like these options, while helpful for users who want to build up their account immediately, are really serving as barriers for those who want to get to the main site immediately.

7. I’ve finally made it to the main page, logged in and ready to go. The main landing page has a lot going on, but they’ve made good use of tabs to separate the content appropriately. I have the option of viewing the latest ratings from the community as a whole or just my own personal ratings in the main content window. The sidebar keeps track of keywords (basically like a tag cloud) for myself and the community as well as my friends and “dittos” (users that have similiar interests based on sites reviewed).

8. I definitely want to try adding a rating so I click the “Rate a New Site” button. I also had the option of rating any of the sites that have already been added by other users at Ratepoint. The interface is very nicely built with auto-completion of tags and “hover-highlighting” of the rating stars (and yes, I just made up the word “hover-highlighting” and I think it works beautifully in this case).

9. I’ll be adding DemoMarks today with a big fat 5 stars because we rock, in my respective opinion of course. Adding it was just a few clicks and we’re on the list.

10. I start to check out the other options available (assuming I haven’t seen everything by way of the 20 screens to make it to the main page that is). The profile page again uses tabs to present quite a bit of information about users with similiar interests, my friends, the ratings I’ve completed, and the keywords tagged onto those ratings. I think the layout of the site and interface is something Ratepoint really excels at and it definitely shows as their strong point.

11. Going into the tools page I see a few options that Ratepoint already covered with the initial login but one great feature that I find is the prominently displayed toolbar available for install on Firefox and Internet Explorer. The toolbar gives all the functions of adding ratings for a site as well as forwarding it on to other friends right in your browser so you don’t even have to be at Ratepoint all the time to use the service. It’s a great feature that will help users adopt the service over time and build up their list of sites.

12. On the invite page I’m given the option of sending a message to a friend inviting them to join. I also have a referral link that I can use which will add them as my friend when they sign up using it. One nice thing that wasn’t included is the ability to send invitations to multiple people at once.

I may have given Ratepoint a hard time because of the initial login process but that’s a simple usability issue they could easily address. On the upside they’ve mastered the rest of the interface and manage to provide a lot of information in a clean and organized matter. It says a lot that at no point in the process did I feel overwhelmed by the information on the page. The AJAX autocomplete and highlighting features are nice and the toolbar is a wonderful addition that will aid in the addition of multiple site ratings without visiting Ratepoint each time and manually entering them. For a free web application I think it had its ups and downs but it’s an interesting idea and I’ll probably be back to visit and find out what friends match up with my interests.

Have you ever had this idea for a great web application? Something with tagging and google maps and possible a digg like voting system built in, or maybe something complete different. Problem is, you’re not a programmer and don’t have the money to hire one just to find out if your idea would be successful or not.

Well I’m not a programmer either and lucky for you and me, Ning has made a product that makes building a web application something that takes a matter of minutes (No, I’m not kidding). The idea intrigued me so we’ve decided to give them a run for their money and make a Web Application Review Site using their service. Here goes nothing!

Requirements

• Nothing! Ok, 1 email address to sign up, but that’s it!

1. Ning is a free, online platform for creating social websites and social networks. One of the outstanding features is the ability to copy any other Ning site and make it your own, customizing it to your hearts content. We’re going to attempt to do something just like that. From the main page we’ve got a few more popular options for social websites, Video, Photo, and Group sites. Since that’s not exactly the type of site I want to create I choose the “Get a Site” tab.

2. On the Site Builder page I get the same 3 options as before but near the bottom I now have a few other options available. Keep in mind that at any point in browsing other Ning sites I could have simply chose to build one based on that, I’m just lazy. I see near the bottom the choice to create a Review Site. Bingo, let’s do it.

3. I’m greeted with a demo of what the menu will look like and a bit more information about how I can customize it. Some of the options available to me are choice of colors, review information, and custom modules like a Google Maps module. For now the first step will be to sign up with Ning so I can copy the review site.

4. When I click the Sign Up link in the upper righthand corner of the screen I get a popout form to fill out. Easy peasy, I enter a few bits of information and I’m logged in.

5. After logging in I’m back at the same review site but this time the Ning bar up top gives me the option to build this site. I choose that option and input a title for my new review site as well as a URL. All Ning sites are subdomains under ning.com. Once I’ve added the information I’m set to move on to the next step.

6. The settings page is the most lengthy of all, and that’s telling you something since this form is not even that long. Basically I will be setting up exactly what my site will review and what options reviewers should have. I’ve decided to make it a Web Applications Review Site (original, eh?).

7. The next step simply asks if I want the reviews to show up on a map. Maybe I’m not thinking outside the box enough but for now I can’t really think how Geotagging and Onling Web App Reviews could fit together. If you think of something let me know and we can go halfsies on the investment and make millions. For now I choose no and hit next.

8. We now get the option to change up the colors of the review site. They given a lot of nice color combinations but if you really had a specific color in mind you can create a custom set. I’m going to choose a nice earthy green tone because I’m feeling like a hippy today.

9. Our final step (almost done already? crazy) is to shoot off a mass email to anyone we want to invite to use our little social site. I don’t have many friends and when it comes to spam they’d probably rather tar and feather me than come see another site I’ve built so I cancel this screen.

10. 5 minutes of work and we’ve got a Review Site up and running. That’s pretty impressive by any standards. Now we get to test out and create a review of our own, and I’ve got just the web application in mind to review.

11. Adding a review is quite simple and the form is straightforward. The only extra field I added was “Location” for inputting the web address of the site to be reviewed.

12. All done and the DemoMarks Review Site has it’s first review (and a positive one to boot!). I still have yet to even have to look at code, Ning has made this process completely seamless for the novice user which is quite an accomplishment for building something as complex as a social networking site.

13. On the homepage I can keep track of the sites I’ve created. Another amazing feature is the built-in site analytics to track page views and referrers for your own Ning site. Clicking through gives even more information on where your visitors are coming from and how many you’ve had so far.

While my brand new review site at http://demomarksreviews.ning.com may not be anything special, many of the other creative mashups created on Ning are. From cheeky sites like CuteOverload Caption Me and 80′s Commercials to the very awesome CC Hits for Creative Commons Music Voting, there are many innovative and useful sites being put together. One other thing that I should mention is that my one Ning logon will give me access to every single Ning site created, so no need to sign up for each service individually. All in all Ning has come leaps and bounds with this product and brought social site building to the common man.

• Internet Connection
• Email Address
• Age > or = 13

1. We begin our journey at the front steps of Piczo and already from a designer standpoint the homepage looks quite a bit cleaner than Myspace (and look at all those beautiful people!). The big question in my mind is how atrocious the profiles inside this pristine package might look, but who am I to judge? Realistically Myspace has offered only the ability to add in HTML and CSS classes but that alone has provided the means for multiple users to mashup their profile to include animated background images, transparent overlays on the entire site, and layouts that give me nightmares. Piczo puts all these tools right in the users hands with no need for 3rd party sites to customize so the prospect of more trash is perhaps imminent.

2. So I head on over to the signup page to see what’s in store. Nothing out of place here. One thing I do like is the website they give you. Your own subdomain in Piczo is created during setup. It is interesting that the birthdate is the only means of preventing someone too young from signing up, but then again I’m not sure how companies could best deal with that. It’s an honor system at best.

3. One signup is complete I get the option of importing my contacts from a variety of services powered by Plaxo. This is another cool option that allows users to immediately increase their number of friends and get some use out of Piczo right away. Me, I don’t have any friends so I soldier on.

4. With all the initial signup out of the way I immediately get to start adding content, starting with the profile picture. Pretty straightforward but since I’m shy I’ll use the DemoMarks logo.

5. Man that looks sharp.

6. I decide to flesh out my profile a bit more with some information so I choose that. Immediately I get to the Editing page and MY SWEET LORD WHAT HATH THOUGH WROUGHT. It is as I suspected, the site went from clean and simple to ridiculous. Perhaps things would have been a bit more clear if the overlapping boxes hadn’t thrown me off. Nevertheless, as I sit here I can begin to see how parts work together. I notice the box urging me to add a background so I’ll choose that.

7. I have a wide variety of choices from solid colors and images to patterns at my fingertips. I can also upload content if I so choose but I like that Piczo has provided a lot of standard options so I don’t have to constantly upload pictures for use. I’ll choose a tiling image for a background.

8. Sweet, it’s like a custom web design job from 1996. I see the hovering box still wants more from me so I click where the excellent graffiti tells me to.

9. The WYSIWYG interface looks a bit like Linux and not all too attractive but it gets the job done. Each text box can be edited individually allowing an endless stream of customization to keep me busy all afternoon. But I have better things to do so I finish this edit up and decide to take a look at the other options for “Pimping my Piczo.”

10. One option available to insert is clipart. Again Piczo has put a ton of content online for the user to choose from and it’s all sorted in categories. Pretty easy to use and the interface is intuitive.

11. Thanks to a partnership with YouTube I can browse the latest hilarious jackass stunts done by middle schoolers and pop one into my profile with ease.

12. I can also import pictures using Photobucket. You’ll notice a storage meter at the bottom. Piczo has a pretty unique way of handling on the online storage that is required to serve up all this content. I decide to dig deeper and find out what the rules are.

13. I go to the account settings where things become a bit more clear. New users are capped at 200 uploads but there’s a thing called a “Storage Bonus” based on how many friends you have. The first hurdle for me is to find 25 people that don’t hate me.

14. Ignoring the errors to the right we can learn a bit more about this mysterious Storage Bonus. Basically Piczo is rewarding the continued users that are building their network by granting them more server space. This makes sense for many reasons and I think it’s very unique. If people sign on one time and never come back they aren’t going to need more than the minimal amount of space. However, if you have a userbase that is constantly earning new friendships and building up their profile, essentially making the most of Piczo, giving them more space to continue to grow is a great way of encouraging continued use and rewarding the loyal fans.

15. I also managed to find some community-generated tutorials that aid in the building of your page. These tutorials are written by members of the Piczo community.

16. Here’s an example of walking a person through the steps to create a fixed background image. This tutorial also gives the user some pre-made examples.

17. In the end I didn’t spend much time pimping out my Piczo Page but the possibilities seem endless. One nice feature is that users aren’t limited to a single page and can have multiple subpages, a big difference from Myspace. This practically expands Piczo from simple social networking to an online WYSIWYG Website Authoring Application.

Piczo has a lot going for them. Instead of leaving the customizing up to the 3rd party sites like Myspace, they’ve built all the functionality into the system. Their partnerships help bring new content to the users and the ability to expand a profile to multiple pages makes this a formidable option for teenagers with little experience creating websites who want a place online to connect. While it’s no “Myspace Killer” and the design issues come to the foreground in many of the profiles, Piczo has taken a unique approach in many areas to how it handles online content editing. It’s free with advertising sprinkled on just about every page and worth a look if you’re into this sort of thing.

Strengths

• Loads of preinstalled content
• Partnerships with social applications
• WYSIWYG editing with Drag and Drop

Weaknesses

• Interface confusing at times
• Lack of better layout options
• Most user-generated sites are pretty much inaccessible