mike_barton
Editor

Hawkee, MySpace for geeks

news
Dec 6, 20062 mins

No, this is no neo-con, or Hawk, hangout for dropouts from the Bush administration, as the name might suggest. This site has always been pure geek, mainly for swapping code. But now it too has become a real social network — for social software and social shopping?

D’oh. So much for the idea that social networking is changing the world; well maybe with social software dev, but we can’t forget the power of change one gadget at a time.

Enough slagging off Hawkee.com, gathered from my read of the TechCrunch post, which notes:

Scott Aikin, the founder of Hawkee, said he tried to make sure that he had all of the “basic social networking” features. So you can create a profile with a picture, leave comments for your friends, send private messages, etc. But you can also read your friend’s recommendations, snippets, and scripts, almost like their own personal blog. [Highlight] You can also search the electronics that they have tagged in their wishlists when it comes to gift giving time.

I guess we all have to pay the bills, which highlights the concerns over a social networking (SN) bubble. How will these networks be monetized if no gadget shopping links? Is this the silver bullet to save SN?

Talk back to us, below.

mike_barton

Mike Barton started out in online slinging HTML for CNET.com in the late 1990s and began his editorial career at New Media magazine shortly thereafter. In his early days, he was an editor at Ziff-Davis's PC Computing and ZDNet.com before heading Down Under, where he produced and edited the business and technology sections of The Sydney Morning Herald online. After returning to the States in 2006, he has worked for IDG's Infoworld, PCWorld, Computerworld, and CSO Online. He currently edits and produces WIRED.com's Innovation Insights, and is a contributing editor at ITworld.

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