Real Words

It occurred to me today that I haven’t been active on Mixx, my favorite social bookmarking site, much at all in the last couple of weeks. And I realized that it made me a little bit sad. It was bound to happen since I was committed to a bunch of projects this month but I really enjoy spending time on the site and wish that I had more of a chance to do so over the last few weeks. As I realized this, I began to think about why I like Mixx so much when I really haven’t spent a significant amount of time on any of the other social bookmarking / social networking sites.

After mulling it over, I realized that there are a number of reasons that I prefer Mixx to the other sites that are available:

• I got in early enough to feel like a real part of the site. It’s hard to get active on a site that’s been established for awhile. This was the main problem that I had with Digg, a problem which is faced by numerous other people trying to join the well-established site. I have always felt like the most popular social bookmarking sites have these insider rules that I just don’t understand well enough to enjoy the site. Even when I’ve had success on some of the other sites, I haven’t really felt like a part of the community there. That may have been my fault but it’s the case nonetheless and isn’t true of what I feel about Mixx. It’s noteworthy to point out that, in my opinion, someone could still join Mixx today and be able to get this sense of closeness that comes with the community there.
• It’s chick-friendly. I do a lot of technology writing so I’m used to being the sole gal in a group of guys. However, there are some sites that are more male-dominated than others in terms of social bookmarking. Although many of my Mixx friends are men, there are a lot of women on the site. More importantly, they’re posting links to articles that are about more than just celebrities, diet and fashion. I’ve found other sites that have a strong female presence to be primarily dominate in these areas that are of a bit less interest to me as a reader.
• There’s a wide variety of stories but they are neatly organized. Many of the leading sites are niche sites which focus primarily on one type of story - such as technology. Mixx really has a great variety. But unlike some of the other “wide variety” sites, it’s easy to find what you’re interested in because of the organization of the site. I will say, however, that trying to search a particular keyword has never really worked well for me on Mixx because there doesn’t seem to be a “sort by date” option for the search results.
• It’s a user-friendly site with a great interface. As soon as I signed up, I edited my front page to share only the story headlines that I was most interested in. I’ve since modified it several times. It’s easy to adjust how it appears so that I can quickly see what I want to see on the site, whether that’s the most popular Mixx stories or the material from my groups.
• Speaking of groups, that’s a feature of Mixx that wasn’t prevalent on a lot of other social bookmarking sites although it seems to be spreading now. I like Mixx Groups, and am the moderator of one (Writing for Writers), although they have some flaws. The main problem is that people who aren’t familiar with using the site mis-post things in groups sometimes. However, Mixx has made modifications to limit this and the community itself is pretty self-controlling in this area. You can vote people’s submissions up or down. Unlike other sites, voting down seems to be primarily limited to getting rid of content that’s either mis-posted in a group or obviously spam.
• The people who work at Mixx are awesome. They get in touch to see how things are going. They make changes based on user feedback. When Mixx Groups became a problem for moderators, they came up with quick solutions and worked with moderators to help resolve the problems that were arising. And they’re nice.
• It’s a small community but it’s not too small. It’s fairly easy to get to know people on Mixx if you want to. There are many different ways to communicate including commenting on each other’s posts, joining groups, adding to soapbox discussions and chiming in on forums. However, many sites that make it easy to become a part of the community (such as TopHubPages.com) are sites that are so small that they don’t drive significant amounts of traffic to your posts. Mixx is a nice happy medium for that.
• It’s a fun site. When something’s wrong on the Mixx site (which I’ve found to be rare) you don’t get an annoying “error” message. You get a fun message that makes you laugh while you wait for the issue to be remedied. The design of the site and the things that happen on it are all fun.
• I like awards. It’s silly but I like to get rewarded for the effort that I put in to things. Mixx has “top ten” awards and “most active” awards on the site that are updated regularly. This draws attention to your posts and gives you something for your efforts. Sure, it could be argued that you get rewarded in terms of the social networking benefits of the site - and that’s true - but it’s kind of nice to see your name on the “top” page. Plus, checking this page makes it easy to find the people who are most active on the site which are really the ones you want to be friends with if you’re planning to be active as well.

Prior to spending all of my time on Mixx, I dabbled in many of the other social bookmarking and networking sites. Sk*rt, Del.icio.us, Stumble Upon, Furl, Fark, Reddit and Digg are just a few of the sites that I spent energy exploring. Of them, the ones I ended up on most were Stumble and Digg. I still use Stumble a lot for finding stuff online but never got the hang of submitting things and networking on the site. As for Digg, I used it primarily because it’s a main site that a lot of people check out and that’s good for getting attention to the links that interest me. However, I faced many of the same problems as a new user on the site that others across the blogosphere have expressed (see links below). I was basically just waiting for something to come along that was mostly like Digg but a little bit friendlier. Mixx is that answer for me.

Now I need to stop writing blog posts and go back to Mixxing!

Links to other posts about Mixx: 7 Features that Will Make Mixx Huge,  Ultrapersonalization of Mixx, Digg Refugees Head to Mixx, Best Advice for Mixx: Stop Following Digg

Links to information about problems with Digg: Digg and the Cease and Desist Letter, Digg and Ron Paul, Response to Digg Complaints

Question of the Day: For Mixxers, what are the benefits that you see to using this site over any others? For non-Mixxers, what social bookmarking sites do you prefer and why?

[Tags] Mixx, social networking, Digg, social bookmarking, web 2.0, community, Internet [/Tags]