According to the news today, Kylie has launched her own social network, called Kylie Konnect. I signed up to the site to get a feel for it, but I’m not impressed! Why?

It’s not on Kylie.com

Why start up a totally different site to let your fans rave about you? The social net should be part of the artists main website. Where most musicians’ websites have forums today, in the future they should have social networks to allow fans to interact.

The design is awful

It’s got this blotchy black and white background that is completely distracting, fonts that are difficult to read and the navigation is completely un-intuitive.

Once you sign up, there’s no tutorial to show you how to use the site. In fact, as far as I can see, there’s no help section at all.

Where are my friends?

The social element of social networks is the ability to connect with other people. Kylie’s social network makes it extremely difficult to see the other people on the site and connect with them. Think about MySpace’s recent users feature.

And when you visit another user’s profile page, you can’t even see their friends! One of the greatest ways to connect with other people through social sites is by allowing them to find like minded people.

Where’s the content?

Show me the recent pictures and blog posts. When I log in, all I see is a bit of profile information and nothing else. This is frustrating – I want to see what other people are saying about Kylie, look at pictures people may have uploaded or whatever.

What about a forum? Where can I join in a discussion about what my favourite Kylie tracks are? No such functionality. It doesn’t exist on Kylie Konnect.

It’s almost as if they’ve launched before the site has been completed. By the looks of things right now, Kylie Konnect is about 25% complete. It’s nowhere near being a fully functional social networking site though.