The Site Most Resembling Multiply Is...

In my hunt for a new online home I've found only one site which offers the customization features of Multiply. That site is Xanga, one I'd barely ever heard mentioned before. I'm not saying it's the only one in existence, just that it is the only one I've found. Here's why it resembles Multiply more than any other site I've found so far:

Multiply According To Alexa

First, what is Alexa? According to their "About" page Alexa has built an unparalleled database of information about web sites, including statistics, Related Links, and more. Their information comes from internet users who have installed the Alexa toolbar in their browsers. The toolbar collects information about their web browsing; what sites they visit, how long they stay, etc... Alexa then uses this information to rate websites according to parameters including Traffic Rank (how the site compares to the rest of the internet using site visits as a gauge) and Search Traffic (the percentage of site visits coming from search engine results) among others.

The long term results aren't encouraging

Round And Round And Round We Go...

So here we go again, changing from one platform to another as yet another blogging site potentially discontinues its services. This time it's Multiply, which in my opinion has by far the best toolset, best features, best privacy controls and best/easiest customization options of any similar site. However they have begun reducing their focus on the social networking and media sharing aspects of the site choosing instead to focus on e-commerce.

There's a new CEO now, and their corporate HQ is moving out of the US to Indonesia. I don't have much faith that things there will stay as they are for long so it's time to go out and test the waters. Multiply will be a hard act to follow, I don't expect to find another site which offers everything they do.

Music Playlists and Copyright Infringement

I recently changed my settings on my Multiply Inbox so that I'd be shown updates by contacts of my contacts. The overwhelming majority of these updates were music playlists, a whole lot of music in fact. All of the ones that I checked were visible to me on each user's page, and all appeared with a "Download" link next to them on each user's page.

I hate to be a party pooper but this basically offers a way to share copyright protected music. Anyone with access to the playlist can simply download the song from your page. Aside from potentially violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act it's also a clear violation of the Multiply Terms of Service and Use, the penalty for which can be the termination of your Multiply account. I asked Multiply customer service for clarification and received the following as part of their reply, "sharing unauthorized copyrighted material (including music) violates our terms. So yes, you can share music, as long as it is not unauthorized copyrighted music."

You may want to make all of your playlists private, just to be safe. Edit each playlist, select the "Advanced" access option then uncheck all of the boxes and save. Each playlist will state "For you" in the upper right corner once you've properly edited it.

Given the increasingly litigated legal issues surrounding music I suspect that the abilities to download, embed and/or share music will soon be severely limited.

This concludes this public service announcement, we now return to your regularly scheduled multiplying.

Holy Moly It's E-Mail Hell!

My first multiply.com mistake? My e-mail alerts settings. I got e-mail alerts for each entry posted by all my contacts. Each blog entry, each photo album, each comment, every single entry imported to multiply from 360° by all of my contacts. It was hundreds upon hundreds of e-mails. So ... the first multiply lesson learned is to turn off those damned e-mail alerts!!

"How do you do that?" you may ask, well I'll tell you. If your inbox is getting inundated with multiply alerts click the "my account" link at top right of any multiply page then click "My E-mail Alerts". I highly recommend unchecking the "Posts by my contacts" option and keeping it that way for a while. If you leave it schecked you'll get a separate e-mail for everything any new contact imports from another blog plus everything new.

My latest round was a total of 171 mails, and that was at least the third time. Screw that!! Once most everyone has migrated to multiply or wherever else they are going to go I'll turn them back on ... maybe. They all show in your Multiply Inbox when you log in anyway.

Yahoo 360° Closing

Yahoo! has announced that they are closing down 360° early next year. They aim to make a universal profile to replace all the different ones currently used. Yahoo! claims that none of your content like contacts and blogs will be deleted but it is Yahoo! we're talking about here.

So now it's time to find a substitute, either as a backup plan or on a more permanent basis if you're fed up with Yahoo! and their inability to consistently offer services and/or make them work correctly. The three I hear the most are MySpace, Facebook and Multiply.

MySpace is kind of a pain in the ass. It generally seems to take multiple clicks to get anywhere or find anything. They've made it easier to customize your pages but overall it's still not all that easy to control how your page looks. Most customization requires you getting code from a non-MySpace site and pasting it in. Blog privacy options are good, each entry can be set individually unlike 360°. You can make photo albums and all that, but it's nothing special. I have a MySpace page but I never use it.

Multiply is much better in my opinion. Customizing is easier, there are several premade themes you can pick from and user groups onsite with thousands more. You can easily hide and restore content modules on your page or drag and drop to rearrange them. There are multiple privacy levels ranging from specific users all the way up to everyone. Blog entry sharing options can be set individually per entry. What I like most is that everything is easy to find, when you log in you are taken to a page that shows you updates from all of your contacts, or if you choose it can show just yours, or those from contacts of your contacts, etc... You also have control over how these are displayed to you. One huge plus is that Multiply has a couple of Import tools for 360°. One enables you to import your blog entries with almost no effort. You lose the comments but your blog entry is preserved, html and all. Another tool enables you to invite any or all of your 360° contacts to Multiply in a couple quick easy steps. Overall I much prefer the look and feel of Multiply.