There are social networks for everyone these days based on language, geographical location, interests and other, sometimes unexpected parameters. For example, there’s a whole social network, just for cats – well, their owners.
Malasyian-based catmoji.com aims to unite cats and their masters – or the other way around through a layout seemingly lifted from Pinterest. Not a cat person, but you still have a pet which you love - and you want to share this love with the world? No worries, you don't have to put up with this cat-biased discrimination anymore! Introducing "My social petwork" - yeah, I guess users don't have to like just pets, but wordplay, too. This also looks like Pinterest full of furry critters and it seems more like a promotion project for a British company Pep Publishing – but it’s there, and you can use it if you want to.
Some social networks are not so much about interests. A very superficial and some may say elitist social network is beautiful-people.com. The whole principle honestly and bluntly goes against the "don’t judge a book by its cover" idea and only admits people with a pretty face. If you want to join, you have to submit a membership application – and if its existing users don’t think you’re attractive enough, you won’t get it. If you’re feeling confident, sure, go ahead, give it a try – I don’t think I want to either be reject or be part of such a social network. Then there are social networks that wants to go local, not global – for example, a few years ago lifeat.com made somewhat of a splash in social media. It aimed to cater to residents of upscale apartment buildings located in several cities in the US, UK and Australia – it was also invite only, which means that local parties, news and gossip stay local. Somewhere along the way the idea fizzled and the website is no more.
Then there was this. The Russian League for Safer Internet has created their very own social network, uniting volunteers who help fight online injustices. According to a statement made by Denis Davydov, executive director of the League, in 2013 their "cyber-militia" of 20,000 people – and not just from Russia. The network was launched several months after the announcement – last September. I joined the social network after a somewhat drawn-out process, even though I tried logging in through Facebook – I had to submit quite a lot of personal information. After authenticating my cellphone, I was finally allowed access to the "cybermilitia" social network, only to find out that basically it’s a Facebook clone – seriously, it looks pretty much the same as the largest global social network. Overall, it was confusing experience, as apart from socializing I could try to score achievements based on in-network performance and even try and sign up for tasks, such as tracking down online criminals. Long story short, the largest community has thirty-something members and was updated in October. Well, maybe it will be revived eventually, but for now it may as well be considered stillborn.
Anyway, yet another very specific social network may soon be launched in Russia – one uniting Russian lawmakers.
