Go Ahead… Chime.in!

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There’s a new kid on the social media block. Granted – the block is getting a little crowded. Between checking Facebook, trying to keep up with Twitter and updating Tumblr, most people are getting a little tired of creating yet another profile and keeping tabs on yet another social networking site.

But this one has the potential to be different.

The Basics

It’s called Chime.in and instead of following a person, brand, company or some other entity, you follow topics that interest you – from movie trailers to economics to art history to pictures of cute animals.

Your Chimeline (clever huh?) only streams “chimes” that are in the topics you indicate interest in. This is meant to filter out the stuff you don’t care about and encourage you to engage, share and discuss on the topics you actually do – unlike the Twitter timeline that captures every thought of the people you follow, whether you’re interested in it or not.

The Value

The content on Chime.in isn’t necessarily different from other social networking sites – it’s just more focused. People are chiming the same photos, videos and articles they’re tweeting – but the content is being directing at people who subscribe to the same interest, so it has a better chance of reaching people who might actually care.

Undoubtedly, it will take time before we fully understand the best way to utilize Chime.in and determine if it has the staying power of a site like Twitter. But right now it seems to hold even more potential than Twitter in one respect. It offers users the opportunity to create their own personal brand by engaging directly with others who share their defined interests. Just like Twitter, users share thoughtful, engaging content – but this time, the social chatter is more focused, offering a greater chance of users establishing themselves as go-to sources of information on the topics they care about.

The Bottom Line

With millions of tweets and posts flying around the Internet, what guarantee is there that the people who would value our content the most will even see it? On Chime.in your content at least seems to stand a fighting chance. So go ahead and chime in with that obscure article on the life of Van Gogh – people following art history chimes will be into it.

Maybe joining just one more social network won’t be all that annoying…