MyCube – The New Social Network with Right Principles

I have been using MyCube beta version for the last week and have got more understanding about it. I find that this is a totally different social network to what most social networks have been. Its principles are unique and I totally agree with its emphasis on privacy, ownership, and control. Other than that, I find that the interest grid and nano-payment features are innovative and very useful.
I always believe that we must have enough privacy in using social networks. As privacy matters in the real life, it should also be the same way in the digital life because our digital life is the reflection of our real life. Therefore, we should be able to control what we are sharing, who we are sharing with, when, and under what conditions.
A social network should allow its users to control their privacy EASILY and I find it this way in MyCube. To begin with, the default setting within MyCube is private, not public. So, nothing more than basic public information will be displayed, unless we choose to. When we add a contact, we can categorise that person into a certain group. As defaults, there are three main groups: friends, family, and others. We can add more groups easily as we like and customise them accordingly. This way, we can put our contacts in the suitable groups, so we can share anything more comfortably and easily to the right people. It also works the same way when we post status, articles, photos, or videos.
One thing that is new in MyCube is the interest grid. We can choose a number of interests. If other users post something under the interests that we choose and would like us to see it, then that post will appear on our home page. This way, we can control not only the information we share, but also the information that we receive. Other than to build networks with people who have similar interests, I think this also gives us value by getting timely information of the things we are interested in.
One very important value that I find in MyCube is that users own their data and contents. MyCube will not use, share, or claim users’ contents. I find this a bit different to Facebook’s terms. In Facebook, users are said to own their contents, BUT actually Facebook gets the permission to use any contents that we post until those contents are deleted. However, if we have shared the contents to other users and those users still keep those contents, Facebook still has the permission to use those contents.
To emphasise the importance of intellectual property, MyCube introduces ‘Cube’, a similar concept to money in real life. When we post something that has intellectual property, we can give a price to it in cube units. People who want to get or use those items can purchase them using their cubes. I think this is a very important new concept in social network. As it is very easy to grab anything online, people tend to forget who has the ownership of certain things, and usually the value goes to the services. The use of cube will help to clarify this and give value to the creators as well.
In conclusion, MyCube is a fresh new social network that brings different principles, the principles that bring us closer to the real values in real life. I believe that our digital life can become more enjoyable and safer when it is conducted as close as possible to the real life. As people get more understanding of how digital life should be, instead of just accepting what the social networks give to us, I am sure more people will choose to use MyCube.