Raptr.com

It has taken me 16 sites to finally have one about something I absolutely love and that’s gaming. Suggested by a friend (Drew Chapman, what what!) the site Raptr.com is a nerdgasm waiting to happen. If you like gaming, you like Raptr.

After you first create your account a little, nifty box pops up and tells you four main features of Raptr.

Your personalized news feed is showcased as number one. Depending on what games you follow, your news feed will suggest related stories. For example, I put The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as one of my games and the first thing I see is an article named "Some Bugs Were Intentionally Left in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D." Then beneath that story was a Black Ops article (which I also read). I love that Raptr did this. Instead of Googling for interesting reads, I get them here and for my favorite games.

The next feature is very Digg-esque. Besides each story’s link (and Link if it’s a Zelda story) there’s a voting option that allows you to say if the article is good or not. The Raptr community can see the votes and, if the article looks like it is getting more ‘nays’ than ‘yays’ users can save their brainpower from reading it.

Also like Digg and many other social media sites, you have the option of sharing with your online community by submitting an URL link. Post game news, videos, screenshots and anything else of interest. If more people like your link, more people will see it. So don’t post a dud. 

The next point of interest is the fact that you can always search for and add more games to your profile. You can also track games automatically by downloading the Raptr client or adding gamer IDs in settings. I personally love this the most. You aren’t a dedicated gamer unless you at least check this out.

Then of course we have the usual social media functions. You can message, you can chat, you can read the blog (which I suggest you do), you can update your status and make or find friends. However, there’s a Games section that’s pretty fun to peruse that gives you more in-depth and interesting tidbits about different games.

Sure, Raptr has similar makings as other run-of-the-mill social media sites, but it specializes in getting the interest of the gaming world. From Black Ops players to CityVille fanatics, Raptr has something for any type of gamer.

Another point for Facebook

Annoying Tweets & Much Thanks

First off, I want to say a big thank you to all of my readers! In less than one month Social Spaz's blog has been viewed 5,000+ and I couldn't be happier!

Secondly, I've decided to do another round of The Most Annoying Tweets soon! Stay tuned and if you didn't catch the first round go here.

Thanks again!

AllConsuming Revisited

Have you ever been consumed by a great book, a catchy song or album, an entrancing movie, or had some food and drinks that were phenomenal? Ever find something awesome and you want to share it but your friends aren’t into the same stuff you are? AllConsuming.com is definitely a site you should join and bookmark.

How the creators describe the site: All Consuming means many things to many people. Some folks take it literally, as in “consumerism”. Others take it to mean being “consumed” by a great book, album, movie or delectable food. Think double entendre with a sprinkle of irony.

AllConsuming lets you create an account and add things that have you are consuming, things you have consumed, and things you intend to consume in the future. Basically, it gives you a fun atmosphere to share the things you love and also find things you may come to love.

For those of you who don’t know, I am obsessed with reading. I can get a great book and demolish it in one sitting. However, the problem I sometimes face is finding that amazing book. That’s probably the number one reason I love this site—the book section rocks. I’ve already gone to the Books page and perused the continuously generated page of user suggestions and found two books I’m about to purchase because of it. You better believe as soon as I’m done I’m going to review them on AllConsuming too.

A really cool feature called the “Should List” allows any user to send you a suggestion for an item for you to consume. Whether it’s a close friend or a complete stranger, a person can send you a suggestion.

Another neat feature I didn’t realize was there until after I joined is that AllConsuming is made to interact well with your 43 Things, 43 Places, 43 People or Lists of Bests account if you already have them. “One site fits all.”

AllConsuming has a plethora of diverse members that are out there sharing their tastes with their peers. As soon as you join, go and search through the Books, Music, Movie, Food & Drink, and Other categories to learn about new and exciting things you may have otherwise never heard of.

TheSixtyOne Revisited

Hold up people. You think you know a site that is awesome for finding equally awesome music? Well you don’t. Here it is, thesixtyone.com.

Thesixtyone, is an awesome site that, from the home page you are already in the loop of new artists making new music. Become a member or not, either way you can still browse through pages and pages of new artists and great music.

When you sign up (which you really should) you go in as either a listener, an artist, or a label. I can’t even pretend to be a music artist or a label so I went with what I know.

From the get-go you dive into new artists and their songs.

The neat thing about this site is how you can navigate it according to your own interests. You can go to Explore or Popular. Popular is my favorite because it has the option of Moods. I wish more sites had this option because sometimes you don’t know exactly what you want, you just know what you are in the mood for.

Another cool thing about thesixtyone, is the Quests part. By completing the Main Quests and the Daily Quests you get exposed to different kinds of music and gain reputation points.

If you have an account you can personalize your own playlists off of the songs you find and like. You can also follow other users, whether they are artists or listeners to see what’s up.

Another point of interest that thesixtyone has, is that while on each artist’s page, little tidbits of info pop up and once clicking on them you can learn more about the person or band. It’s pretty nifty if I do say so myself.

Overall thesixtyone.com is musically randomized awesomeness. Not only is the site full of great new artists but it also is an aesthetically pleasing one at that.

Don’t follow the crowd, better yet, beat the crowd to the punch. Go to thesixtyone.com and see what it’s all about.

LineforHeaven.com Revisited

“Am I going to Heaven?” ”Religion can be fun!”

Want to save your “soul” and become closer to “God?”

Too many “quotes?”

LineforHeaven.com.

LineforHeaven is a social networking site that, surprisinly (or maybe not), many people take part in. Their About page assures you that religion can be fun and any religion is welcome. The concept of this site is for you to save your “soul” and reserve your place in “Heaven” by earning karma points. You can play games, “Bless” people, and interact with your fellow members.

Normally I wouldn’t copy/paste such a big list from their About page but who am I to stand in the way of your salvation? This is a list of a member’s benefits:

• Save your “Soul” and commemorate your passage into “Heaven” with eternal life online as an “Angel”. 
• Meet and talk with like-minded people on your spiritual journey in a fun, light-hearted, non-hostile environment. 
• Be able to bless others, while visiting a “Soul” or playing the Blessing Game, and get blessed in return. 
• Cleanse your “Soul” and be forgiven for your sins. 
• Feel good about yourself by spreading the good Karma, donating/tithing, and supporting worthy social causes. 
• Compare and track your inner worth with Karma Points. 
• Be a part of the history-making, Earth-shattering social gathering. 
• Learn more about religion and religious tolerance. 
• Promote yourself and your work, and get noticed now before LineForHeaven becomes too crowded like MySpace. 

I have to say, I do love how ballsy LineForHeaven is. They are going big and letting you know it.

However my favorite thing about the About AND the site itself is how you achieve getting into “Heaven.” I will copy/paste again because you just can’t make this stuff up.
In Heaven, the most worthy can earn a position next to God. Every Sunday (“Judgment Day”) at 7 PM PST, the first person in Line for Heaven will become an “Angel”, inducted into Heaven, and One Degree from God.
Users who have acquired the most Karma Points on a daily basis will be allowed to touch Heaven.

LineForHeaven.com’s creators are either slightly insane or have a great sense of humor. Either way the site isn’t half bad. I mean, you can play games that forgive you of sin and saving your soul has never been easier. You certainly can’t say the same for Facebook or Myspace.

43Things.com Revisited

Man have I got a crush on this new site. CouchSurfing.org may have inspired me to travel, but 43Things.com has inspired me to do everything else.



43Things is a site that allows people to share their goals, their progress on said goals, and to cheer others on with their own little warfares. This concept is simple, but muchos effective. There’s just something empowering about posting your hopeful life goals, whether big or small, on a site where others can see it and say “go for gold!”

You create your account and get started right away. Make your list of goals you want to achieve and see how many people have made the same goal. You can also make a resolution and have it remind you every month, every three months, or next year that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO.

Man have I got a crush on this new site. CouchSurfing.org may have inspired me to travel, but 43Things.com has inspired me to do everything else.



43Things is a site that allows people to share their goals, their progress on said goals, and to cheer others on with their own little warfares. This concept is simple, but muchos effective. There’s just something empowering about posting your hopeful life goals, whether big or small, on a site where others can see it and say “go for gold!”

You create your account and get started right away. Make your list of goals you want to achieve and see how many people have made the same goal. You can also make a resolution and have it remind you every month, every three months, or next year that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO.

43Things is inspiring. A must do.

Be a Spaz

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/SocialSpaz.

Then follow us at https://twitter.com/thesocialspaz.

While you're at it you should check out Social Spaz's list addiction at http://listgeeks.com/socialspaz. Everyday for a year straight I will make a list!

Lusting after Lists

I started Social Spaz's Tumblr as a place to review social media sites and now I'm revisiting a few of my favorites.

For: People who dig lists

Lists are things your mom makes before she goes to the grocery store. ListGeeks.com are lists that everyone else makes that put your mom’s to shame.

Let’s be real, a good majority of people who use more than the top tier social media sites are, in some form, geeks at heart. Once upon a time this may have been a description looked down upon by society, but now being geeky can be a glorification of sorts. ListGeeks.com may have said description in it, but don’t let it throw you. ListGeeks is clever and fun.

ListGeeks.com is all about creating, sharing, and comparing lists made by you and other members.

Okay, let me go ahead and stop that inner voice from saying, “Why would a website about lists be interesting?” Why would posting pictures and reading statuses of people you don’t really care about keep you enticed for hours on end? Because, with people come diversity and the people on ListGeeks come up with some pretty interesting lists.

I’m going to list you the cool features:

1. You can create any kind of list you want that can be seen by everyone on Most Recent Lists.

2. ListGeeks gives you two numbers on each list. The first number represents the people you are following (yes, you can follow people on ListGeeks) who have made their own version of the list you are looking at. The second number is the total number of people who have created a version of the list. I think this feature if pretty nifty and after browsing through most recent lists I saw the “Zombie Apocalypse To-Do List” and made my own version of it. There were four more version on the site.

3. You can browse the Most Popular Lists, these lists are usually pretty fun.

4. According to the About page, the creators (based in Berlin, Hamburg and NYC) are saying that ListGeeks.com is currently in beta. They are asking their users to let them know if anything messes up or if they have any feedback to make the site better. This is exciting for me for the fact that, since it is in beta, it can only get better. (Please note that I wanted you to read “beta” and “better” as “betta” to be funny.)

All-in-all, I really enjoy ListGeeks. It’s addictive and makes me want to make lists so awesome that people will create alternate versions of them. So if you have an affinity for being clever or if you just want to make a legitimate list about places you hope to visit one day or your favorite songs, ListGeeks is the place.

http://listgeeks.com/socialspaz

PayPal say wha?! conclusion

For those of you who read the troubles that Regresty.com were having (see this a blog) read the conclusion to the fiasco at Registry's blog post- Paypal Update.

Paypal say wha?!

If you haven't heard of Regresty.com you are missing out on cunning sarcasm and humor. I plan on doing a more in-depth article about Regresty getting the shaft by Paypal when they were trying to giving to a charity, but I'm backed up with projects at the moment.

In the meantime, you should visit http://www.regretsy.com/ and read up on the controversy. It's gotten so popular it was trending on Twitter for a while.

#regresty

Buffy: Not just a slayer, but the new Facebook phone?

Yes, you read right. For the past few weeks reports have been dancing around the Internet that Facebook is currently working on creating a phone that has been given the nickname of "Buffy" after the sassy vampire slayer on the WB.

As far as the rumor goes, Facebook has hired HTC, the cell phone manufacturer, to create a smartphone that specifically will revolve around the social networking power house. The article that appeared on AllThingsD.com on Nov. 21, claimed that this will be a modified version of the Android phone and should be coming out in the next 12 to 18 months.

The phone, once again still rumored, will run HTML5--the latest languages for structuring and showing internet content. This will greatly integrate different FB features into the basic platform of the phone. Buffy will sync messages, photos and contacts between your phone and the site.

Facebook has decline to comment directly or even acknowledge that said phone does exist or will exist soon.

“Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social,”  a spokesperson told AllThingsD.” We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”

So...Facebook is making a phone (we'll pretend we know for sure) but will you get it?

I'll tell you what, I don't think I will. I am a hardcore Facebook user and fan but I don't need to purchase a new phone just for Facebook. I can just use my smartphone now and get on to check my notifications and browse my newsfeed.

I'm all for investing in a phone for convenience and efficiency, just not for one or two less clicks to get to my wall or blog.