Social Network for Crime Writers and Crime Readers

This is a great network for writers and readers of crime fiction. Crimespace on Ning.com is a “place for readers and writers of crime fiction to schmooze, booze and draw up plans for the heist to end all heists. Find new authors to delve into and discuss the latest in crime fiction. Share photos, videos and make some friends. Pull up a chair at the bar and share your poison.”

Ning.com is a site where you can create your own social network for free - or join any of the social networks already there. You can chat with other members, post to a free blog space, discuss issues in the forum. The forum has discussion like “Which fictional character would you invite to the pub?” and blog posts about what it’s like to as a writer to reach those famous last words: “The End” . In answer to the first question, I think for me it will have to be Katherine from CSI Vegas and in respect of the latter: a sense of disbelief that I’d finally got there!

Crimespace was started by Sydney based crime fiction writer Daniel Hatadi, who also blogs at http://danielhatadi.blogspot.com/. He writes of Crimespace: “Member include authors like Val McDermid, Stuart MacBride, Ken Bruen, Anthony Neil Smith, Sara Gran, John Rickards, Cornelia Read, Harry Hunsicker, J. D. Rhoades, Ray Banks, Sandra Ruttan, Anne Frasier, Sandra Scoppettone, Duane Swierczynski, Sean Chercover, and the list goes on, growing every day. The hope is to fill Crimespace with established authors and up-and-comers, occasional readers and committed fans of the genre, the idea being to connect us all.”

Charles Kelly, a crime writer whose first novel Pay Here is due out soon with Point Blank Press told me, “I just joined, but I foresee several benefits. For one thing, it’s a friendly, very personal way to share my experiences as a writer and lover of crime fiction. It offers an opportunity for personal promotion of my soon-to-be-published novel, and it’s very user-friendly, technologically. It leads you through the steps of, essentially, creating your own blog. And it encourages the creation of a personal web page, which I haven’t done yet but will soon. All in all, it’s great fun!” Charles is veteran reporter for The Arizona Republic and have covered many crime stories in Arizona, including the murder of Republic reporter Don Bolles in 1976 - all excellent personal experience to infuse a crime novel with authenticiy. You can visit Charles’s Ning page at http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/pulpnoir

If you are inspired to join Crimespace or start you own writers network - or any other network, let me know and I’ll publicise it for you here on Fusion View.

Usability Points:

I found that Ning takes some getting used to and I think it’s usability could be improved or made a bit more intuitive. The key thing to remember is that Ning is devised around social networks rather than individuals. So from what I’ve experienced, if you want to find a friend on Ning, you need to find the network first and then look for the person/ friends you’re looking - rather than thinking about your friend and then actioning that thought by seeking your friend first.

Then, once you’re in your chosen network, to find a friend on that network, you have to go to “My Page” and click through from their picture on that page. Clicking on their picture in any other mode doesn’t seem to take you anywhere.

If someone leaves you a “Chatter” on your page, you will get an email notification that they’ve done that (if you’ve set it to enable email notifications in such circumstances). However, if you got to your Chatter page and reply to that chatter, your friend won’t be notified of your reply - you actually have to go to your friends page to reply to the Chatter they left on your page. That strikes me as rather clunky, especially after applications like Twitter where replies are automatically routed to you and you can easily follow a chain of tweets.

I’d be curious to hear from other Ning users who may have different views about its usability - or who might be able to give me some guidance about navigating around Ning.