There are some very good applications for Christian social networks. I understand that parents, for instance, may want a safe social networking site for their kids to join rather than MySpace. If the network is faith-based, such as Tangle, we can assume that it will be safe and reinforce the values we hold and that we share with others on the site. There is a lot of value in something like this when it is done well. Though Tangle is basically a Christian MySpace, it executes its purpose extremely well. For this reason, I respect and support it.  It looks professional, has significant funding behind it, is very functional, and is a great place to find information and friends based on the topic of Christianity.

But you have to draw the line somewhere – and figure out where value and outright copying intersect. And when they do, stop what you are doing. Please.

I have never used Faithout.com – and I have no intention of doing so.  Sure, the developers are far more talented than I, being able to build a platform where people can connect and build community.  However, I don’t understand using those talents to put something together that – frankly – has already been done before (and done much better).  The title of the site reads “Christian Facebook Alternative”.  They have a sister site called Xians that is – you guessed it – a Faith-based MySpace.  A quick glance at the design is truly telling of how much of a copy it really is.  To the site’s credit – they don’t claim to be original.  However, that doesn’t make it right.

This raises some bigger questions from a ministry standpoint.  Are we really supposed to segregate ourselves from everyone else?  NO!  Yes, we need fellowship.  But must we commit and entire website to copying the largest social network in the world?  That seems to be one of the worst ways I can think of to represent Christians on the web.  “Look at those Chrisitans.  There they go, stealing our ideas again.  Oh well.  Guess we’ve come to expect it.”  Faithout has over 7,000 users (no telling how many are actually active).  So if you sign up for this service, and not others – just remember that there about 175 million more users on Facebook that you are missing out on connecting with.

I’m a strong believer in small groups in the literal sense.  Great churches thrive on community.  It’s how Jesus lived life with the disciples.  But Jesus didn’t go build his own ‘Chrisitan community’ to remove himself from the world.  He did however create small groups in the world that then influenced the world.  Why should social networking be any different?

I recently read/heard someone say that using social media should extend your existing business model, not change it.  This makes me think of the church – we meet a few times a week, but as the body, we go to work, go to school, go to sporting events – you name it, we do it.  Because we live in this world too.  We don’t only go to Christian sporting events because we’re scared of something we might see, or the people that might be at secular ones.  I think I’ve made my point.

Please, let’s use the heads on our shoulders to be creative.  Let’s influence.  Let’s take advantage of the HUGE networks that already exist and build community there.

I’m not saying that Christians should be doing this thing better that anyone else.  All people have gifts.  Let’s just let the people with the original idea, gifts, and enough funding be the people who do it.  Then let’s be a part of it.

UPDATE:  You can also use this service from NutshellMail.com, rather than just the Facebook application.

Yesterday Mashable broke news about a new Facebook application that monitors your social networking and email accounts and sends recent activity straight to the email address of your choice.  The application, called NutshellMail, allows you to select at what times and on what days you want to receive email updates.  It only informs you of certain Facebook activity, including new messages, friend requests, group invites, friend invites, and unread pokes.  However, you can also get updates from LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, and any other email address that you dread checking all of the time.  I’m extremely pumped that it doesn’t tell me every time your mom threw up on my super wall or asked me to be an interior decorating pirate.  Whew.

NutshellMail is enormously beneficial for me.  I have two Facebook profiles, manage three Twitter accounts, have two personal email addresses, a work email address, and a profile on all of the sites I listed above.  Rather than logging into all of these every day with the possibility of being distracted from my real work, I can simply read the email from NutshellMail email as I do several others throughout the day to catch up on the latest.

Installing the application is pretty easy – just go to the application page, click “Go to Application”, and follow the instructions.  Don’t forget to check your inbox to verify your email account so you can start receiving updates.

Hope many of you find this free application as beneficial as I do.

• Relationships - not only is building relationships my favorite thing about it, it’s the most important thing.  If you’re primary concern is to determine ROI when developing your social media strategy, you might want to rethink joining the conversation at all.  Yes, there are trackable analytics, but social media is more about the customer having a voice than it is about your bottom line.  I love that many of the relationships I have experienced though our LifeWay Twitter account are now people I keep in contact with personally.
• Transparency – This idea has been around since AOL offered personal profiles to all of their users.  People and corporations are being more open and honest with people about who they really are.  And while some people might be dishonest to get attention, most people can see right through it.  When Threadless accidentally deleted five years worth of user blog posts (before they had dev servers – only one year ago, mind you), they were honest with their community about it.  Surprisingly, there was little negative feedback.  Not only did transparency help their reputation, but one of the people in the community wrote a script to recover all of the lost data.
• Feedback – Because the nature of social media is in fact social, people love to give input.  I’ve used feedback from people not only personally but in my work at LifeWay as well.  Twitter provides the quickest and easiest outlet to poll people, though this can be done effectively on blogs as well.
• Crowdsourcing – This falls in line with feedback, but is actually different.  While feedback gives you a response to your content, crowdsourcing is used to create content.  What kind of content?  Well, just about any kind.  From 99designs, where users submit designs to win prizes, to Get Satisfaction, where customer service is provided by consumers, it can be used for just about anything.  Crowdsourcing is a hot-button issue for a lot of people because it threatens their industry.  No longer does a company have to pay top dollar for services, because people are willing to work for just about anything.  I love crowdsourcing because it  shows the power of community – however, my support for it depends on why it is being used.
• News – It’s been said before – but social media is by far one of the quickest ways to get news.  I love that while I’m talking to people, and doing something I enjoy, and I can also hear about news from around the world.

What are your favorite things?

Sure enough, I pulled up GodTube.com today only to be redirected to Tangle, the new version of the site, including a redesign to go along with it.  The site now offers not only video sharing – but blogs, photos, music (band pages), playlists, and more.  It essence, it’s now a Christian version of MySpace.

I must admit, I’m always skeptical when Christians take ideas that have already been done well by someone else and make the faith-based.  However, if it’s going to be done, it must be done well.  And given the funding that the service received, it looks like they have put the time and resources into doing it well.  What do you think about it?