#ubermedia

(by Brian Triplett Spokane Examiner)

People who like using Twitter and Facebook will probably love a new social networking site called Chime.in.

Chime.in is the latest creation of UberMedia, a company that has created social media apps that are being used by over five million people.

  According to Tomio Geron of Forbes, "Start-up UberMedia has been known as the largest independent app developer on the Twitter platform–and is known for driving the most Twitter traffic outside of Twitter itself.

  "... UberMedia is launching its own micro-messaging platform called Chime.in, with essentially all the features that Twitter would not let it build on its platform. The Chime service, however, is not designed to be a social network to compete directly with Twitter, says UberMedia CEO Bill Gross. Instead Gross calls Chime an 'interest network.'"

  Imagine Twitter, only with much longer tweets, more pictures and videos and the ability to "like" people's content in a manner that may remind users of Digg and StumbleUpon.

  According to Ben Parr of Mashable, "Users are allowed to write short articles on Chime.in — up to 4,000 characters. A chime displays a headline, the first few sentences of a chime, a piece of multimedia (an image, a video, etc.), a profile picture, interest tags and options for liking, commenting and sharing. Chimes included threaded comments that include a Reddit-style up or downvote system for surfacing the best comments to the top of a chime."

  Chime.in allows people to prioritize what they see from the people they follow in ways that aren't available yet from Twitter.

  "Chime addresses two problems with Twitter and other social networks, Gross says. First, the problem of relevance; that is, following people and getting random Tweets about things you’re not interested in. There’s no filter. There are also people you’re interested in following for their messages on one topic, say technology, but not another topic, such as what they ate for breakfast. With Chime, you can follow particular interests or communities, which are like online groups or forums. Also you can follow people, but choose to only get their Chimes on a particular topic (say only updates from Bob on ‘semiconductors,’ but not ‘dogs’)," Geron said.

  Harry McCracken of CNET pointed out some other benefits of using Chime.in.

  "Chime.in feels quite a bit like a beefier Twitter, with hints of Facebook and Google+, but it's not a mere clone of anything else out there. Two features give it a distinct personality:

  "1. Instead of being organized principally around people, the site is about subjects--any subject that can attract a quorum of folks who like to discuss it online, such as news, tech, hobbies, and sports. The discussions are made up of "Chimes"--wordier equivalents of tweets that can include links, videos, polls, and up to four photos. Chime.in automatically organizes them into "Chimeline" streams based on the topics they discuss, and users--including companies--can create communities on any subject.

  "2. If you create a community, you can stick ads on it--such as Google AdSense ones--and keep all the money you make. Or you can let Chime.in populate it with advertising and give you a portion of the proceeds. Either way, it's a strikingly different proposition than other social networks, which put ads next to the stuff you create without cutting you in," McCracken said.