Get your social network on with yder

yder is an interesting concept: an a that leverages the APIs of allows you interact with and manage social networks from within the power of the Mac OS X environment. If you're a chronic social networker, yder might (eventually) allow you to eed up your o e ive profile checks so you have a better chance at getting outside for once. The reason I say 'eventually,' however, is because yder i 't without its shortcomings.

First and foremost is the fact that the language at yder's site makes it sound like it will (eventually) work with more than one network, but for now, it only shakes hands with My ace. While it allows users to manage more than one account (for example: if you run a band or an org in addition to a personal account), it doe 't let you do much more than browse friends and their friends, send me ages and leave comments. No blogging, no iPhoto integration for picture posting, no vlogging, etc. While these mi ing features (hopefully) might arrive in a future version, there is still the glaring problem of price: yder is $40. Now I'm not really a fan of My ace (though yes, I succumbed to peer pre ure and opened an account in the hopes of silencing my friends), but $40 sounds way, way too high of a price for the minimal convenience it offers above going directly to the site itself. I could see $10, maybe $15, but $20 and above for yder - in its current state of minimal, My ace-only features - is just too much to ask. I think the developer would get a lot more attention if he/she offered the a at a discounted price during its present feature-maturing state, while simultaneously promoting what features are coming, and how the price will increase through development (commercialism 101: people love a sale, and they love to know what they can get for their money in the near future). I've seen other developers have succe with this open promotion and development method, and yder could really capitalize on this due to the relative cornering of its particular market; I've never seen another (potentially) full-fledged social networking a like this.

Long story short: yder is a great idea and it has a lot of potential, but I can easily see its price knocking it off many potential customers' wishlists. It will be interesting to see how yder evolves in the future.

[Update: readers have noted in the comments that My ace, for some mind-boggling reason, doe 't have an API, while others like Facebook, Flickr and Upcoming do, making it much easier for 3rd parties to make a like this. My gut reaction as to why yder stuck with My ace for its launch is probably because of its ma ive popularity.]