Social networks are crammed full of powerful self-organising tools for union activists, but they have two downsides:

1. Commercial networks like Facebook can have a hard time differentiating activists from potential spammers, and have banned several unionists. You don't want to lose all your hard work and effort.
2. It's hard to keep continuity between campaigns and groups, and when things are as big as Facebook, it can be tricky to focus on your key contacts to work together.

Unionbook gets around these two problems by bringing union activists together in a space controlled by activists for activists.

Of course it has its downsides too...

1. It's less feature rich (so far) than other networks, as it doesn't have R&D megabucks (though it does have open source Elgg.org goodness!)
2. It doesn't have 65 million active members. Unionists will always need to plug in with the commercial networks to talk to members and potential members. Unionbook (by its very nature of being restricted in interest to activists only) is never going to have that kind of viral or data mining potential.

So it's not designed to compete with Facebook and Myspace directly, but to provide similar services in a more targeted way for activists.

John Wood 413 days ago