GLRF social network, Network Now!, officially launched

After several months of testing and tweaks, the GLRF internal social network, Network Now!, was officially unveiled in a soft launch to the GLRF Los Angeles and GLRF London area members. The service will be more widely announced at the end of September to ensure there are no hidden “bugs.”

Similar to other social networking services, Network Now! offers each member the ability to update his/her own activity stream through manual updates or from a direct link to a person’s Twitter account. Members can also ‘friend’ others. What differentiates Network Now! is that all personal profiles are limited to gender, geographic location, and rowing skills so that members can be assured of a continued level of privacy. GLRF OnlineID’s are the only visible form of identification unless a member wants to upload a personal picture. Photo and video sharing options from Flickr and YouTube provide great added rowing features. One of the nice features of the video sharing is that the videos are automatically embedded in the page so web surfing is minimized.

However, the real strength of Network Now! shines as a community building tool. Since most rowers belong to a variety of clubs in a given area or region, Network Now! provides a perfect medium to connect rowers at a social and community level. However, the regional group possibilities are just one option. With Network Now!, any member can form any group for any focus or interest. Collegiate rowers can form groups based on competitive conferences, and coaches can form groups based on rowing skills: juniors, collegiate, masters, and elite. Rowing areas of interest can form groups: open water, masters, and adaptive are just some of the possibilities. Groups can serve to coordinate events and regatta participation.

Groups have three levels of access, depending on the amount of desired GLRF membership interaction: public, invitation-only, and private. In keeping with the GLRF individual membership structure, every member can set his/her desired level of interaction with groups and other members through an extensive menu of notification settings, thereby minimizing excessive email updates.

GLRF members are encouraged to click on the Network Now! navigation button and join a group, or create your own.

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Update 18 May 2011: The Network Now! group component was replaced by the All Oars Groups, an application of the All Oars Network. The new groups feature offers greater flexibility and connectivity for the GLRF community. Read the blog entry on the GLRF Maintenance Log.