This local company is dead set on making the Internet more manuverable
As social media becomes more mainstream, one major problem poses an ever increasing threat to all of our online activity: Managing multiple social media and other online accounts as we enter new forums.
One thing about the Internet is that it’s so darn enticing. Even if your grandma just got a computer and Email a year ago, there’s a good chance she now has a Snapfish.com account, or is looking for love on SeniorsCircle.com. (Sorry grandpa.)
The proliferation of account-based sites is something that bothers Michael Durwin, the founder and “chief idea guy” at Boston-based Rangl.me (formerly Gathr.me). As a creative director and user experience pro, Durwin finds it tough to manage all his work and personal accounts effectively.
Rangl.me was born out of that frustration about a year ago, and although it’s still completely under wraps, Durwin agreed to sit down with me last week to talk about his vision for the product. He’s well aware of the challenges he faces, both in the construction of Rangl.me and in it’s deployment from a legal standpoint. But that’s not stopping him; he’s hell bent on making the Internet easier for you to use and a whole lot less fragmented.
Note: Rangl.me is still in the ideation phase, so prepare to use your imagination.
Essentially what Durwin is building is a browser-based dashboard you can sign into with one password. (It’s a password manager, but just wait. It’s so much more!) That dashboard then signs you in to all your favorite online hovels and hideouts. In Durwin’s dreams, Rangl.me will find every account you have online, categorize those sites by type — say, Social Networks, Shopping Sites, Email Accounts, etc.
But those dreams are becoming a reality, according to him.
If you spend any time online, you likely already use the “bookmarks” feature in your browser, no matter which browser is your go-to. If “bookmarks” functionality is the Wright Flyer, pioneering easier navigation online, Rangl.me will be will be an F-16 Fighting Falcon, taking you where you want to go faster by letting you bypass login screens and dropping bombs – the ultimate vision for the product is an interface that would allow you to upload a picture to Rangl.me, which the software would then post to your Flickr, Facebook and Shutterfly pages automatically.
On this level, we can envision a big browser dashboard that toggles into a smaller version, which fits neatly into the top of your screen and travels around with you as you surf the web.
The idea seems to be that by creating a smarter navigation system – complete with mouse-over actions that keep you informed (think: “You have 3 new Facebook messages”) the Rangl.me interface could make it much easier to interact with more communities online.
Rangl.me will take all the crap you do (left) and put you at the center of the experience (right).
Durwin calls it a solution for “managing your online presence.”
“It’s not a super universal FriendFeed,” he cautions. “It’s not one place that aggregates everything all your friends say that will allow you to respond to everything once and have that go out to every channel. There’s too many legal hurdles to that.”
What it will deploy, however, is a system of typified universal uploaders: Change your status on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter by entering text into one “micro-blog” box on the Rangl.me dashboard. Post your long-form thoughts to multiple blogs with a simple stroke of the return key. Share videos to multiple platforms in a myriad of formats (QuickTime, Flash, .mov, and .mp4) automatically since Rangl.me will know what format constraints each of these host sites is limited to, and will re-format your files for you.
Sound like overkill?
“We want to offer all the functionality that power users want and realize that 99% of our users will only use 10% of what it will do,” says Durwin. “The passive user of today that has an Email account and belongs to Facebook is the power user of tomorrow.”
Sound too good to be true?
It does to me, but I don’t have the same vision (or, admittedly, the same experience with user interfaces) Durwin does. The problem with mass aggregation of user-generated content – say, taking all your friends’ Twitter updates and all their Facebook updates and hosting them in one location is that this user-generated content is extremely valuable to the host sites. Lawsuits would be unavoidable in a large-scale deployment. To be sure, Facebook wouldn’t make any money if you didn’t have to go to their site and view their adds to see that your friends just posted a picture of you barfing from last weekend’s party.
But this is not what Durwin’s Rangl.me is trying to do. The product will simply let you project your updates and additions to the conversation out. It’s a one-way street. The problem that initially strikes me about this is that so much of social media and online community building today is the conversation. Interactivity is key, and it implies that you listen and talk in equal parts (or at least theoretically. We all know most Twitter users are just listening.)
The bad news: You’ll still have to visit Facebook to see what everyone is saying.
The good news: Rangl.me hopes to streamline that process by way of this supercharged bookmark system.
You’ll put your cursor on the Facebook tab, and that will inform you a little bit about what’s happening with that account. Then you’ll click it and it will drop you on the site.
To get a little bit clearer picture of what Rangl.me is trying to do, check out this video Durwin posted on Vimeo:
Rangl.Me Pitch Video from michael durwin on Vimeo.
What do you think? Could something like Rangl.me work for you, or are your visits to hot spots online too few and far-between to warrant it? What will a middle-of-the-road Internet power user look like in five years?
For more on Rangl.me, be sure to look for Durwin at SXSW when it kicks off. You can also follow him on Twitter @mdurwin.
Tags: Company Profiles, Edu, Product Reviews, rangl.me
