I just registered and had a look around Vancity’s social network site and I am highly impressed.

Are you ready to change everything? | ChangeEverything.ca

Welcome to ChangeEverything.ca, the site for people who want to change themselves, their communities or their world. We’re still putting the finishing touches on our design and making sure all the lights and buzzers work, but we’re glad you’re here — and we hope you’ll jump right in.

Things I liked:

• its a hosted blog site without calling itself that – its very user friendly encouraging people to get engaged. There is loads of upside potential to develop affinity with customers through this site.
• they ask people what they would change; the changes are tagged, and displayed in a tag cloud. What a great way to take the temperature of the users on current events and thinking
• the user interface, and colours. Its easy to use and you don’t have to be an experienced blogger; in fact its encouraging people who would possibly not otherwise blog
• its localised – they are encouraging talk about their neighbourhood and city
• its compelling enough to bring people back to talk more. Whereas HSBC’s effort is asking your opinion, this has enough interest, blog posts, and opportunity to comment. Its a genuine social network site
• It has tags, and rss feeds
• flickr integration

Relevance to Bankwatch:
This is the first effort in financial services that can call itself a genuine blog/ social network. Top marks to VanCity for this effort, and one to watch. If you find yourself looking at this, and wondering, why are they doing this, just stand back and watch it grow.

Technorati Tags: vancity, social+network, bank+blog