MocoSpace

 MocoSpace Image I’m already tried of the phrase “Web 2.0”. It’s time for a new buzzword. Still, the big paradigm shift of Web 2.0 and one that’s here to stay is the idea that users and especially communities of users are what gives the web value. That can mean sharing of user generated content such as photos (Flickr), writing (Yelp, blogs), or the collective wisdom of what’s click-worthy (del.icio.us, Digg, YouTube). All these sites also accept comments which is a starting point for a community. Sites Like MySpace and Facebook take community a step further and let users build circles of friends linked together through the site. Because most of us aren’t coders, all these sites let a user create a web presence without needing any technical skills – although some do allow the the html and javascript savvy some room to show their stuff. With so many of these user generated content sharing, community building sites getting huge traffic, I thought I’d spend some time looking for the mobile equivalent.

I found a bunch of mobile social web services that let a user quickly create a mobile site where they can share their writing, photos and even videos and where visitors can contribute comments, chat and perhaps participate in polls. I’ve written about Winksite and Spaces, both examples of the genre which has been dubbed Mobile Social Software or MoSoSo for short. Similar sites are Buzzed, TagTag, ProDigits, Wappy, Mob5, MyWap and MocoSpace.

MocoSpace is one of the newest mobile social networking sites, launching just last April . It’s easy to create a MocoSpace site. You have to register at mocospace.com which is relatively painless requiring only that you give an email address and specify a password and username. Your username is your public identity on MocoSpace and also the name of your site. Your site is instantly active with a url of mocospace.com/u/user_name. Those slashes are a pain to enter on a phone keypad, a subdomain format (user_name.mocospace.com) would be easier. MocoSpace uses browser detection to deliver either a PC formatted html page or a WAP2 (xhtml-mp) or WAP1 (wml) one depending on your browser’s capabilities. The browser detection seems reasonably good although I got the PC version on Opera Mini which was only marginally usable. I found that you can force mobile output by using the url mocospace.com/wap for wml or mocospace.com/wap2 for xhtml.

Mocospace’s target demographic seems to be young singles looking to meet new people and has a little more of a dating site feel to it than most of the other MoSoSo sites. Still, many MocoSpace users seem to be using it more as a photo sharing and general chat site rather than to find a soulmate.

A Mocospace site consists of a main page with an optional photo, some information (name, age, gender, hometown and an “About Me” text that you can create ) about your from your profile and links to a fixed set of pages list below:

  • Options – This ambiguously named page leads to your personal chat room where people can communicate with you in real time – which seems like a good alternative to SMS at least if you have unlimited browsing but pay per message for SMS. You can limit your Chat room to Friends Only or leave it open to everyone which is the default. Also on the options page is your MocoSpace Relationship Status the most overtly dating-site feature of MocoSpace. This seems to be unrelated to the Relationship field in your profile and refers to whether you are in a relationship with another MocoSpace member. There are even links where other members can propose to you with the following choices: “go steady”, “engagement” or “marriage”. Finally, there is a history button where other users can see the your Mocospace relationship history.
  • Friends Comments – View comments left on your page by other users.
  • Photos – You can upload your photos directly to the PC version of Mocospace and also by email or SMS. Photos must be approved – presumably to enforce the site’s rules against profanity, violence, nudity and offensive or copyrighted material. Approval, on a Sunday at that, took only a couple of hours. Photos can be .png, jpg or gifs as MocoSpace Image long as they are under 300KB. They are resized to thumbnails of 90px on the longest side with original aspect ratio and quality maintained well. On the mobile site only the resized images are viewable but on the PC site you can click the thumbnail to view the original.
  • Videos – must be in .3gp format and under 300KB which is pretty small allowing only about 10 seconds of low quality CIF (176×144) video. Photos and videos are public by default but you can restrict access to friends only.
  • Blog – Blogging features are limited. The only formatting seems to be that that newlines are preserved but otherwise it’s strictly plain text. No bold, lists, etc. Users can leave comments. No trackbacks or categories but you can include a single image.
  • Reviews – Can be of anything. Movie and Music reviews predominate. Similar to blog posts but they have category and star rating fields.
  • Friends – This is just a list of people who have left comments on your page.
  • Favorites – You can tag other people’s photos and videos as favorites and they appear on this page.

You can customize your MocoSpace homepage somewhat. You can change the background and text colors and upload a background image. These changes only apply to your home page not to any of your other pages like photos, reviews or blogs.

MocoSpace also has a number of features at the top level, independent of any individual user’s site:

  • Browse Users – See a list of all users online and search for members by name, age, gender, sexual preference, relationship status or proximity to a zipcode.
  • Photos, Videos, Blogs, Reviews – Browse and search any of these across all users.
  • Chat – 13 Chatrooms on various topics like Party, Tivia, Canada, UK and Romance.
  • Forums – subforums on Mobile Phones, Music, Movies & TV, Sports, etc.
  • Love – This is where you can track Mocospace relationships with three lists; newest relationships, longest relationships and recent breakups. Wow, talk about living your life in public.
  • Top Rated – users can rate other’s MocoSpace pages and here you can find which sites get the most votes and highest ratings.
  • Invite friends – send an invite by email or SMS. MocoSpace Image

MocoSpace seems to be gaining users pretty quickly, the forums and chat rooms are very active. Overall, I think it’s a pretty good effort at a new MoSoSo site but lacks any unique feature to really set it apart from the competition. Everything works and the site is fast and attractively designed with good mobile usability. Mocospace is supported by small banner ads and text ads which are generally unobtrusive except that the site occasionally forces you to click on an ad to continue using the site (bottom image)! You can remove the ads with a premium membership at $2/month.

Although it’s a mobile site, MocoSpace it doesn’t really leverage the mobile phone’s unique ability to find friends, contacts, events, clubs, etc near your current location. Of course, location information is not available to off-portal sites in the US. But it will be someday and already there is Dodgeball, which it doesn’t even have a mobile web site, but has built a location aware social network entirely on SMS. You send a text message telling Dodgeball where you are and the site texts your location to any of your friends who are nearby. Dodgeball is showing the feasibility of location based MoSoSo (MoLoSoSo?) and building a base of users who understand the concept. When the carriers make location information available on the mobile web Dodgeball could already own the market. MocoSpace and similar sites need to cover the location-based aspect of mobile social software to remain competitive.

I’ve added MocoSpace to the YesWAP.com mobile portal under Technology/Mobile Phones/Mobile Social

MocoSpace: xhtml-mp/wml
Content: **** Usability: ***

Related: Mobile SocialWapReview Directory Page

36 thoughts on “MocoSpace

  1. i’ve been on mocospace for 2 and a half years and ive made a few friends on there,the downside about moco is that some of the people are ego hungry and bully others. Another downside is too many people get away with a lot of sh*t and ops dont do nothing about it.

  2. Mocospace is for filthy mcnasties! If you want to degrade yourself and prove that you have no morals and values…it’s the place for you.

    If you want to meet other perverts with online sex addiction’s, it’s the best place for ya.

    If you want to sabotage your relationship over Internet infidelity…join now!

    If you have any respect for yourself or others….Chose another networking site, for sure!

    Hope this helped!

  3. i just got a cute guy’s number. Its the easiest place to get numbers and he is so sexy i don’t care if he is a perv!

  4. I deleted my profile from Mocospace. Some members just try to get my cell number. I wasn’t having it. I will look elsewhere if i want a guy thanks very much. Their all pervs.

  5. This website is horrible. My picture was stolen on mocospace.com and has been made fun of some sickos even saved it to there comps and cells and post it every were. This website is a very bad place the owners do not care at all. One sicko even told me my last name when I never told any one it. Mocospace needs to be shut down and the bullies need to be arrested and thrown in jail. Because of this website I will never post a picture up ever again.

  6. agrees with calt, it is not a safe site and the owners lack of action against cyber bullies is ridiculous! where can you complaint about it?

  7. I have met so many interesting people since I joined!Sure,theres weirdos EVERYWHERE and Moco is no exception,just pay attention to who you give your info to! The only complaint I have is I cannot find or figure out where the downloaded pictures have gone!! The instructions given do not work with my phone,its a Cricket TXTM8 made by Qualcom. Anyone that can help me,,I will name my next born after you!!!! ALL HELP APPRECIATED BEYOND BELEIF!!

  8. this website is full of perverts and weirdos and the owners of this site are always unavailable for help,questions etc. this website is very vulnerable and i woulnt reccomend it

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  10. Dangerous site, and the owners do not care. Their investors must be retarded. Here’s a prime example of a vile topic that was reported to admin numerous times, with absolutely no response from them at all. It’s a gay user being terrorized by lunatic sick users. This is the norm at mocospace. Do not allow your teenagers to access this site. I wouldn’t recommend it to any decent human being. http://www.mocospace.com/wap2/forum/forum_topic-view.jsp?topicid=1074735&r=739

  11. I love it so much!! I met alot of friends and it’s great to get on when you’re bored!! I think its the best website eva!!

  12. emma152, On the Mocospace mobile page, log in and click “Photos” and then “My Photos”, and then “Upload Photos” Follow the instructions on that page to send photos as an MMS to an email address.

  13. hey ppl i just want to say that mocospace is a really koo website to get on you meeta lot of good ppl on there and i think its better then myspace gives you more option’s

  14. how can u change background like a good one from the net?
    blacks boring.
    email me plz [email removed]

    as id like a manga background or fetish one
    :)
    xxxx

  15. Crystal,

    To upload a photo to Mocospace:
    On the PC site: click profile, then photos, then add photo and browse for the photo you want to upload..
    On the mobile site: click Photos, My Photos, Upload Photo. The page will display your upload email address. Sends a picture message to that address.

  16. hey i was wondering how to get this started i wanna know how to upload pics.

  17. i dont kno how to just delete all my myspace pics at the same time and not one at a time do you know how to do that?

    Thank you
    Heather

  18. I have been on Moco and ONLY there for over two years. (I have changed user names) I find that its the easiest to user for us low tec people using cellphones. The Boys as I call them have always been helpful so much so that I am shocked they are so large! Their attention makes me feel special! Are there problems with pervs etc? Yes but you can ban them and report it. I found it works. There are a few features I dont like but the good outweighs it!

  19. I have 2 agree wit Calt,,,,, sumtimes u just think “wtf?”. The admins don’t really seem 2 care bout the ppl who joinin these sites!! I reckon they just want as many member’s as possible, to look popular! Well 2 thumbs down 2 that i say! Its all downhill from there! Bad staff = Bad website! Enuff sed! =(

  20. hey when mocospace going have music in there profiles?? i think it better have music because it boreding without music….. so just let me know why not or going to think about it….. thanks talk u later n mocospace it the best….. take care

  21. i was stalked and terrorized by a man on mocospace.he make horrible,filthy,threatening topics about me.i showed the topics to jamie and justin and they wouldnt even delete the topics.not a safe site.full of weirdos and pedophiles due to owners not caring.

  22. Everytime i try 2conect 2moco it cums up webservice error please check webpage provider why does ths keep happnin, its realy anoyn!

  23. Pingback: Mobile Social networks at Uno de Waal

  24. Site’s changed a lot since this review. Its 100% free now and ads are getting more targeted/tolerable. New features roll out about once a week, which is kinda crazy. Good experience and fun to meet people on it.

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