Net4Mac: Social Networking for Mac Lovers

As if the social networking arena weren’t crowded enough, make room for newcomer Net4Mac, a network catered specifically to Mac users. You can connect with thousands of Apple lovers by joining any of the more than 700 user-created groups, each containing a forum and a comments section similar to the Facebook Wall. A network-wide chat room, a section for classified ads and a personal calendar are among the features in Net4Mac’s premiere release.

Like most social networks, each user maintains a network persona by creating a profile page, listing personal info such as name, age, gender, location and occupation. Where a Net4Mac profile differs from Facebook or MySpace is in its options for describing your Mac rig, your brand of iPod, your iPhone and your level of Mac expertise. (For my profile, I chose “power user” because I’m just that awesome.)

“Facebook and MySpace are great but nothing special for true Mac fans,” says Greg Barrot, the manager of the dev4mac development team, in an email. “With our concept, people can share information on the subject they like and create groups, for example, about the software they are using.”

How does dev4mac successfully limit its members to only Mac users? In order to signup for an account and edit your profile, you must download the Net4Mac OS X application. In fact, the majority of the network’s features are only accessible through the software; only user profiles can be viewed within a browser window. The app approach to social networking allows for features such as badge notifications in the Dock to signify new messages, integration with Address Book for sending invitations to friends, and snapping profile pictures with an iSight camera.

“The application is better than a website because we can make a better integration with the technologies of Mac OS X, like Address Book, iCal, iChat, etc.,” says Barrot, whose user profile is automatically added to each new member’s friends list  essentially the Tom of MySpace. “You cannot do that with a regular web browser,” he says.

Still, it would be nice to have the option to access more of the network’s features from within a browser for those times when you’re away from home and (cruelly) forced to use a Windows PC. But dev4mac has no plans for implementing a web-based version of Net4Mac. “Actual members love the application,” Barrot says. “We don’t believe in web applications; we believe in applications connected to web services.”

It’s clear that users are excited about the potential of a walled garden for Macaholics. In just four days since its debut, Net4Mac has attracted more than 5,000 members, a number the development team didn’t anticipate it would reach until a month after release. But the servers had no problem handling the load, thanks to its Apple Xserve infrastructure running the Leopard Server OS, Barrot says. And users should be pleased to know that there are plenty of new features in the pipeline, including integration with iChat for viewing a user’s AIM status from within the app.

“We launched the application on April 4,” Barrot says. “The feedback from users is just amazing. They love the idea and the application. … And the growing rate is amazing.”

But I still have some qualms with the whole concept. The majority of the features can be (and have been in other sites) accomplished within a browser, including web cam support via Flash, and the few unique abilities Net4Mac offers don’t seem to be worth keeping the app running and eating system resources. The social calendar doesn’t currently integrate with iCal, but Barrot says the feature is scheduled for a future version. The classifieds section is useful, but there is no way to customize the listing to show only items from your area, meaning you’ll have to wade through listings from all over the world  some of which are not even in your native language.

For some reason, Net4Mac uses an installer instead of letting the user simply download the app and drag it to the Applications folder. Nevertheless, Net4Mac is free for both download and registration, with separate versions for both Leopard and Tiger.

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