What a great message to see when you log into www.Anook.com !? I was lucky to have stumbled across this Social Media Website for Gamers. I had entered the #Blaugust contest held by @Belghast and he had made a "Nook" completely designated for us #Blaugust Bloggers. I went to the website with the intent to just snoop around, register and hop into the Blog area that was set up. Well I can say that I was pleasantly surprised to have found ANOOK.com. It allows users to sign in with Facebook, Google plus, or to make a quick account to get started.
I have been building a Blizzard Gaming Guild called Cross Realm Rebellion with a couple friends of mine. It is a safe gaming community on top of an out of game guild intending to unite Blizzard gamers with our battlenet Id's. I was thrilled when I saw how versatile ANOOK was regarding what I needed to make for our project. Anook is in Beta at the moment, but still allows you to make your personal account on top of also making little "Nooks" to house your blog, your guild, or your clans and in my case the gaming community. There are many more categories available that I could still list. The selling part for me was that you can customize your Nook as well as link your Anook status updates to your Twitter account. This was the absolute kicker for me. The problem with running a gaming group, a gaming community, a blog, and a podcast is the trouble of spending so much time relaying information across various forms of social media. I found that with ANOOK I could make my status from my ANOOK site that would shoot through to my twitter ( because it is an option) then my twitter status shoots trough to my Facebook page so it cuts down on how much I have to visit all of my social media hubs and allows me to interact with friends and fellow gamers across all three avenues. ANOOK also makes it easy to find your friends on Facebook and followers on twitter that have signed up on the site already.
This message has been copied form their ABOUT section:
"Anook enables gamers to learn about the latest games, organize and enhance their gaming life and share their experience with friends and like-minded gamers.
Anook is developed by an international team of dedicated gamers. We share the vision of building a home for all gamers – a stage for the competitive gaming culture and a public information resource for casual gamers.
We are working on Anook for over two years and are 100% self funded. Anook is not owned by a major company and we don't earn any money with this website. We build Anook because we think it needs to exist."
When you go to make your own NOOK on the ANOOK site you can add , a calendar, forums, links, etc. which was great in my opinion! You can add pictures, streams, and you can build a ranking for permissions for those who start to follow your NOOK. You can create forums and lock down certain areas for only members to see. You can add in game characters to your account too! That is one thing I have struggled with for our gaming group, people love the versatility of having a gaming community readily accessible to them as they sign into Facebook. They like the push notifications that come with using the Facebook app but no one really knows who they are talking too out of game versus the character in game as the majority of people use their real life names. I really liked that you can hook characters to your profile to communicate who you are if you choose to sign in with your real name instead of your gamer tag. You can get notifications sent to you via email so you will know if your site is experiencing any activity. Another cool part of Anook is that you create your profile and you can create multiple Nooks and also join other Nooks that interest you! I think a site like this will really appeal to people who have used sites like Guildlaunch and Enjin for their guilds but struggle with getting people to participate. That is a problem I face everyday is that we are spread around so many places because of varying interests.You also get to attach games you enjoy to your profile and to your Nook.
The fact that ANOOK is already full of gamers reminds me of a city of gamers. Then when you make your profile you are "Moving In". Then when you build your Nook, you are building your house on a street that is populating at a fast rate. You are connected to everyone outside of our Nook and in them too. That is the part I really enjoy. When you use a site like Guild Launch , there is not a place to mingle and meet other gamers.
Some things I would like to see available are a mobile app, more customization for nooks outside of the Header. An Application Process to have people use to apply to your Nook. Those would be my top 3 additions if I were to suggest any but I am sure they are very common suggestions and have already been added to their to do list!
So essentially you can make your profile, house your blog, house your stream, house your guild/clan/community, etc all from one site. /Mind Blown!
JUST TO BE CLEAR I chose to highlight this bad ass site on my own because I see how this can totally be a game changer for those of us who wear many hats in the gaming community. The devs are on twitter and they are very friendly. It is still in development and they have a forum set up to take any suggestions you have for them. They are paying for this site out of their own pockets and they are gamers too. I encourage you to give ANOOK a Look!
If you would like to check them out for yourself head to ANOOK.com you can meet them on twitter @AnookDotCom and like them on Facebook!
If you would like to Follow my Nooks join me here! Cross Realm Rebellion , The Dirty Casuals Gaming Group, Blizzard Blip Cast . I would love to see more of us gamers filling the ranks and to see some familiar faces!
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