NEW NAME

In my post The Need for an Alternative to Facebook, I mentioned that Altly would not be the name of the service when it launches.

“If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.” – Henry David Thoreau – Walden

With this as our inspiration, we have chosen AnyBeat.com as our name.

CULTURE

AnyBeat will not be a typical social network.  In fact, we don’t think of it as a social network, but rather as a global community.  Therefore we are instituting a set of principles, a culture that will guide our community.

1. We encourage you to feel free to contact any citizen of our community, and to feel free to ignore contact.  AnyBeat is a friendly place where you can meet people that you would not naturally meet in your day-t0-day life or within your social circles.  While Facebook explicitly prohibits you from ‘friending’ people you don’t know, we believe that some ‘strangers’ may just turn out to be new friends, collaborators, and soulmates.  If you’ve ever had a conversation with a ‘stranger’ that left you feeling better understood than by your friends, you already understand the value of such interaction.

2. Respect your fellow citizens.  Everyone in the community earns a reputation.  If you are an upstanding member of the community, you will be taken sincerely and enjoy the benefits.

3. Don’t build your ‘personal brand’ here, do that on Twitter, G+ and LinkedIn.  Instead, see this as a place where you have no work to do whatsoever.  It is simply a place to hang out, socialize, converse, and enjoy.   Many of us have forgotten that some of the best things in life are ones that provide us no residual value.

4. Don’t market to each other.  Share your voice, not your pitch.  Also, brands are not welcome as members.  Brands will later be welcome as brands, and we will make sure that they have sincere engagement within our community.

5. Feel free to you to use a pseudonym (username), instead of your official first and last name.  When everything we say on Facebook, G+, and LinkedIn gets logged and associated with our official identity for eternity, it can be difficult for some of us to fully express ourselves.  Use your full name, your first name, or only a pseudonym.  It’s up to you.

Many of you have already pre-registered your usernames, but if you haven’t, this may be a good time to claim yours, as we will be launching very soon.

Dmitry

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