A website built by Linux vendor Red Hat offers an open project focused on building a live social experience around entertainment.
Will the kids flock to Mugshot once it has been fully released? Did anyone expect Red Hat to be the next company to jump into social networking? Are you wondering why you’re reading a story with more questions than answers?
It’s open source meets open mike night with Mugshot. The project is being developed as an open source effort and builds upon web services available from Amazon and Yahoo.
Presently the site is collecting email addresses from people who wish to join, as it is in a private beta currently. It is a work in progress, but Mugshot does list four reasons why their developers believe you should care about the project:
Mugshot adds new live social experiences to existing applications and provides a platform for building new ones
Mugshot contributes to a leveling of the playing field between commercial and non-commercial content and service providers
Mugshot is designed for mainstream users, not just techies or IT departments
Mugshot is 100% open source, including the server and clients
They define “live social experiences” as ones centered on people and their activities, not just a bunch of documents and files. Communication, or perhaps we should say conversation, is much more interesting and reflects how people use technology already.
Anyone expecting Mugshot to be the next MySpace will be disappointed, though. Its services are intended to complement, not replace, social networking and online music sites favored by its audience.
A couple of features became available with Mugshot’s debut. The Link Swarm allows users to share links with others. Users can download a button and click it to comment on and share a page among other Link Swarm users.
The Music Radar lets users show display their iTunes or Yahoo Music playlist on a blog or website. The theme for Music Radar can be changed or edited based on one’s preferences.
A TV Party feature is coming soon, and will provide similar sharing to the Music Radar feature. Specific functions in TV Party have not been set, but people can view some of the brainstorming suggestions Mugshot has been considering for it.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
