Everyone has heard of Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Yet there is a social networking tool that is as good (if not better) than all of those tools. It’s called Zannel! Zannel is a microblogging tool that is very similar to Twitter in many respects but it also features some tools that surpass Twitter. As a social networking consultant I am always testing out new social media tools and figuring out ways to use these tools to best serve my clients. Every social networking tool has it’s strengths and weaknesses, and Zannel is no exception but in my opinion it comes very close to be a perfect social networking tool.
Overview
With Zannel you can send short messages, pictures, and videos, to the web with your cell phone. Yet unlike Twitter there are no third party tools involved in sending pictures and videos – Zannel handles it all. Zannel has been called a visual microblogging tool, in that instead of focusing on text updates Zannel integrates text, images, and video, seamlessly for the end-user.
What’s so great about Zannel?
The two best things about Zannel are: 1. the widget that you can embed back into your website or blog (Zannel’s widget blows all the other widgets away, it’s customizable and looks great on any website or blog). 2. The connections you can make from Zannel with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and more, many social networking tools allow you to connect with other tools but none of them do it as good as Zannel.
One of my clients uses all the major social networking tools to enhance their marketing program and with Zannel we have set them up so they can send one message and it goes from Zannel to all the other sites (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and flickr), the beauty is that Zannel is smart and it knows to ignore YouTube and Flickr updates if no picture or video is a part of the message. I like to think of Zannel as my starting point with every social networking program I create. With a Zannel account you can update your own website (via the widget), update Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and other sites, all with one text message to Zannel.
The down side
There are a few things that are not so great about Zannel: 1. The small network, while Zannel has a large user base it’s nowhere near the size of Twitter or Facebook, so I certainly wouldn’t recommend using Zannel exclusively. 2. Advertising, there are some sponsored updates that show up in your profile without your opt-in (i.e., your following) which seems a bit odd. 3. iPhone app, while there are some Zannel iPhone apps for specific user (celebrity) accounts I do not believe there is a generic Zannel iPhone app.
Way more good than bad with Zannel
Yet on balance Zannel is a great social media tool and I would recommend that everyone who is employing social networking in their marketing, or just folks that want a more rich microblogging site sign up for a free Zannel account today. Zannel hasn’t gone completely unnoticed and has in fact won some web accolades including a 2008 Webby Award for “Best Mobile Social Network.” Zannel’s web interface is extremely well designed and it’s very easy to register and start implementing Zannel’s great features in a matter of minutes.
Zannel: the best social networking tool you may have never heard of.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I used to work for Zannel a little while back. Great company and really smart people running the show. There used to be an iPhone app called CityWatch. (I know because I created it.) I’m not sure but there’s really no reason why it couldn’t be brought back (especially updated to use the 3.0 SDK). Besides there’s no reason why someone else couldn’t create it, it was built using Zannel’s public APIs. (http://www.zannel.com/api)
true true. I actually did use that api to build a free zannel application for non-iphone phones. If your phone runs Java (95% do) feel free to use it! http://www.getjar.com/products/26468/ZannelLite
and actually i just found the CityWatch app bain was talking about on getjar too. http://www.getjar.com/products/19956/CityWatch