Chime.in

www.chime.in

Main Features: Chime.in is a new social networking site that unlike Twitter, which is centered around following specific people, or Facebook which is focused on networking friends and families, Chime.in focuses on networking people of similar interests. Users can search set up a “Chimeline” which organizes their interests into a RSS like newsfeed which are made up of individual “Chimes.” These Chimes can be can be made up of 5000 characters and can contain attachments such as multimedia, outside links, or polls. Users can create their own Chimes as well which are organized in a blog like fashion based on the topic. One very interesting feature is that Chime.in will also give users 50% of the revenue it earns from selling advertisement on their profiles, thus providing a monetary incentive to chime in.

Level of Difficulty: Chime.in is still in a beta phase and everything including layout or features is subject to change. It feels like a Frankenstein mash up of Twitter, Facebook, a RSS feed, and a blog (but in a good way). It would likely take someone with an intermediate/high background in social networking a day or two to really get comfortable with all the different features and buttons on the website (I’m still learning my self). Once the site completes the beta stage, I don’t see Chime.in being any more or less difficult to use then any other social networking/media site such as Facebook or Twitter. For someone with basic computer/social networking skills however, Chime.in might be very overwhelming as there is just so much going on even on the basic dashboard screen. Hopefully this is something that can be addressed in time.

Potential Classroom Applications: I think Chime.in could potentially be much more impactful in the classroom than any social media to date. Teachers can set up classroom communities and allow for students and faculty to contribute and comment on each other’s chimes. As they site grows teachers could assign students different interests relating to the subject material. For example, a Participation in Government class could assign students to follow U.S Politics and contribute in a discussion about a current event.

Conclusions: I believe that this tool is definitely worth using as it allows for lots of different levels of interactivity. If you just want to keep up with your interests and follow a few things you can do that. Or if you want it to be, Chime.in could be your own personal blog (and potentially even get paid for it). A lot of times jack-of-all-trades applications end up mediocre, but Chime.in has the potential to really excel at everything it is trying to do.