Buzz Networker - Social Networking

Review: 8hands Desktop Software

by Kevin on October 7th, 2007

I am in love. That isn’t an easy thing for me to say but today it just freely rolls off of my tongue.

For awhile I have been looking for a social networking aggregation program that had a specific set of features, most notably the ability to have more than one profile from the same social networking service monitored. I have tried different web based software and didn’t find one that I really liked until I found the desktop application 8hands.

This program sits on your desktop just like any other IM type client. 8hands allows you to aggregate up to 15 profiles including multiple profiles from MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and your Twitter account. Beyond that you can also incorporate various RSS feeds as well so you can stay up to date without having to use a separate reader program. The desktop application will notify you in real time of any new messages, blog posts, comments, etc.

The program automatically ranks the people that you are in constant contact with so they are easy to find and track. You can also order the list yourself if you prefer.

Also you can send IM’s to friends via the client. Beyond that it works as a management tool for your media, if you want to send a friend a picture from your flickr or facebook account you can do it right from this program. It is an easy way to manage a lot of your content and share it in an easy manner.

Down the road 8hands is looking to incorporate Bebo, Friendster, and various other social networking services.

I have been using this program for a few days now and really am enjoying it. The only criticisms I have of it is that they want you to use their IM software, I would love if this program also allowed me to bring my YIM, AIM, and MSN chat into the fold so now I have one desktop application to watch over all my social web applications. Also I think that my systems performance has lagged a little bit since installing the application, this is something I am going to keep my eye on a little bit more over the next week.

I can’t recommend this program enough, for anyone that has multiple accounts this is a godsend.

If you are using it please let me know your thoughts, and if you are trying it I would like to hear about your first impressions.
Technorati Tags: 8hands, social networking, myspace, facebook, RSS, youtube, flickr, twitter

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