Setting up Shmooze - Practicum 1 - Cara

I am about to begin my practicum project and I thought my first post should be done as I navigate through the first website that I have chosen to become a member of. I am doing my practicum project on minority groups and I have specifically chosen to focus on hows Jews use the internet. Even though I myself am Jewish, I have never participated in any Jewish groups, blogs, or social networking sites through the Internet prior to this assignment.

The first website I have chosen to join is called Shmooze.com which boasts itself as "an inclusive society for exclusive people." After sending in my information to be approved to join I received an email that read:


Congratulations! Your shmooze 2.010 membership has been approved. There are 4 simple things you can do to get started:

1. Invite your friends to join you:
http://www.shmooze.com/main/invitation/new?xg_source=msg_wel_network

2. Add Content:
http://www.shmooze.com/main/index/addContent?xg_source=msg_wel_network

3. Tell your Twitter followers:
http://twitter.com/home?status=Just+joined+http://www.shmooze.com

4. Set up your profile:
http://www.shmooze.com/profile/CaraMarks?xg_source=msg_wel_network

Thanks!
shmooze 2.010
Two Jews, 13,334,345 Views. Welcome to a place where you can share yours, no matter how controversial. If we like it.

I decided to skip the first step as I am pretty sure none of my friends are interested in joining this website and I moved on to the second. Every person has a profile on Shmooze that is similar to Facebook in that you are asked to upload a profile photo, you are asked your name, birthdate, gender, location, etc.

Things got interesting when I reached the relationship status portion. My options were: Single and Looking, Single and Waiting, Engaged, Married, Married but Curious, Divorced, Separate, It's complicated, I'll whisper to you later, Just Generally Gregarious, Just Generally Horny, HERMIT! MYOB. This is when I started to wonder what kind of website I was joining. Firstly there is no taken category where you might mark if you are dating someone, I could only chose between single, and or the other side of the spectrum, engaged, married, or divorced. I am confused to why they have no "in a relationship" option. I was also thrown off by the options to be "married but curious", "horny", and " hermit! myob". I am not beginning to wonder what type of people this site attracts.

The next questions are then back to the standard profile questions that Facebook also asks such as to identify your religion or faith choice, interests, hobbies, favorite bands and musical artists. And then it veered off from Facebook again to leave a box for you to "Describe yourself physically in exquisite detail, or exquisitely in graphic detail, or else include some pix!" It concluded with a place to include links to a personal blog, your Facebook page, Twitter, or a personal website.

I decided to sign up under an alias including my first name and my roommate's last name, Cara Marks. I filled a few interests and hobbies, and musical arts and saved my profile. Also like Facebook there are privacy settings. I decided to leave my profile open so that I would be able to hopefully gain some friends and be more visible on the website. I decided to check out my profile which had the same basic layout of a Facebook profile page. I was able to have a status, upload photos, connect to Facebook and/or Twitter, link to clubs, blogs, photos, photo albums, and add and remove applications. It seems to me that even though I am only comparing Shmooze to Facebook, most social networking sites have the same basic layout.

A quick browse of the site reveals a section for videos from youtube pertaining to Jews, a section to learn more about Jewish artists and musicians, a section of photos uploaded by users, a discussion forum, news from prominent Jewish news sources, a section for blogs, editorials, and Op-eds about Judaism, a Jewish hall of fame section, a section that connects to Jewish news via Twitter, and a section for jobs.

After my first time on the website I will conclude by saying that I think it will be interesting to continue to use this social networking site. I am curious to see how Jewish people use and interact on the website.