I know I posted here about how I was going to use this as my personal blog. That is still partly true for off topic posts, but for a more professional approach to what I do I thought it be best that I finally get my own domain name.

Hence the launch of tristanjud.com.

With my current work I am doing with Wordpress themes (soon to be launched) and my work here with ClubPond I am in a great position to comment on the wordpress industry (it's not really that strong here in Australia yet) and social media. Who wouldn't want to here from someone who owns a social network?

You will notice I am branding my self as a "WordPress & Social Media Rockstar", don't worry I don't take myself that seriously but I feel it is a different approach that my or may not pay off. Anyway stop by the new site, subscribe to the RSS feed, hand have fun on clubpond.

To an outsider one might think that ClubPond is a Facebook clone. That is a relevant and warranted statement however it is not until you look deeper into ClubPond that the differences are just as substantial as the similarities.

Lets take a look at Facebook and where it came from. As Rodney states in this post:

Facebook began as a way for people to be in contact with others they rarely meet or see: family who live on the far side of the country, fellow students from the university you used to attend, etc. And you can share pictures to them, since they are currently away from your “real” life. Facebook was not intended for daily friends to interact, or for posting quick, poorly written status messages every 5 minutes. It was meant to be a representation (or “Face”) of your life, so others who cannot see your life firsthand can at least sample it. Search was pretty much limited to companies, universities, and high schools (not for current high school students, but for high school ALUMNI to find each other). All was wonderful, until: teenagers!

Teenagers turned Facebook into Friendster (which is actually designed for your often-seen-real-life friends and buddies to have a cyber-life in addition to real life). While Facebook creators were not really happy with this newly rising group of users, it did increase their total number of customers, which in turns attracts advertising and revenue (as businesses did not care “who” was online, only that it was hundreds of thousands of them).

Although facebook with it's latest update is morphing to meet it's new audience it is still based on the original fundamentals of sharing your life with people you don't often see.

In comes clubpond. Being a new a late comer to the Social Networking site world, I was able to sit back an watch the unfolding's of the social networking scene. I have seen Myspace work to get rid of those "glittery pony animated gifs" by producing a new layout option which saw some easy customisation, and I have scene facebook try to become a daily networker for people.

The fact is ClubPond has mashed the two. We have "The Wire" which allows quick constant chatting between friends. If you friend isn't online then you can leave them a message on the board. We then have our Groups and Clubs side of things. Giving them the opportunity to really get their club involved. The permissions of a Group profile can be set so that all members of the group can create content, not just comment on a post which the group admin has written.

The fact is clubpond is brining people together in a way that is sought after by the giants.

You might say "but facebook has the online chat" That is fair enough but I don't know about you but chatting in a browser window (at this point, I'm not ruling out the functionality) seems to be pointless. The world is full of IM applications, why is it we need another?

Last but not least the best part of all. We combined the person-ability of Myspace's Tom, with Facebooks inability to create a mess of your profile. What does that mean? Well when you sign up to clubpond I am automatically your friend. I am on clubpond everyday, and reply as quick as possible. I've been on facebook for about 3 years and never seen or heard a facebook staff member. MySpace's downfall was the fact that it gave people too much control over their profile hence the glittering pony remark above. We allow you to move your content blocks around just not destroy the clubpond feel.

This is just an insight, that I probably will be re-visiting but it was something that need to be said.

I have often been asked why I don't have a personal blog. The reason is pretty simple, I have a blog for Able Net Design I have a ClubPond blog, the fact is every web app that I launch requires it's own blog, for various marketing purposes.

It has been my decision to help promote ClubPond that I may as well start a personal blog on my profile. With the blog already enabled for user profiles it would be a shame not to use it!

The best thing about this personal blog is that it has no theme. I can post what I want, when I want and about what ever I choose.

For all my design friends out there who might be reading this blog, yes I will be posting about my experience on launching ClubPond and what I did to make it a success.