Internet start-up Noisewater has a new twist on the social networking scene: Six Degrees of Separation.
From the press release:
“Vooaroo is a social networking site that is invite only (limited by six invites) and has a focus on an adult demographic. Currently the site is in development, and only accepting 100 users for initial launch.”
Disclosure: I have a friend who is one of the developers, but The Raging Tech has no affiliation with Noisewater, LLC or Vooaroo, and no compensation was given for this review.
Read on to see what Vooaroo is all about.
First thing’s first – to join Vooaroo, you’ll need an invite. If you don’t have one, I’m giving one away. I only have one of my six left, so if you want it, leave your email address in the comments. I’ll randomly select someone to receive it.
Once you have an invite, you’re also given six invites to give to whoever you please. This is a similar scheme to G-mail‘s public beta, when everybody wanted an invitation, but there were only a few per user. However, unlike G-mail, we can expect Vooaroo to stay at six invites. You’ll have to find any other friends through the search function or through friends of friends.
Here’s what the basic interface looks like, once you’re logged in (click to enlarge):
You get four user pictures to choose from, each with a caption that will show underneath when that picture is selected as “Active.” You get a brief profile at the top with your basic stats. You can’t change certain elements like name, age, or gender, for security reasons (according to the FAQ).
Other key features to the site include Groups, where you can find users of similar interests and have discussions, etc., Mail, a “Friends List,” and a blog. The features all pretty much work as you’d expect. Users familiar with other social networking sites will undoubtably find these features comforting and intuitive, but with a cleaner interface and less “noise” than most sites accomplish doing the same things.
My verdict: if you’re tired of those other sites and just want a nice place to connect with friends, get in on Vooaroo now while it’s still in beta. It’s a neat, AJAX-y, Web 2.0-y, cool thing. It’s got some bugs, but I’ve submitted several (read: thousand) bug requests and suggestions and the developers are busting tail to get them implemented. You can make Vooaroo something enjoyable, and keep it from going awry. I’ll announce who gets the invitation, and you can all bug them for one of their six.