I spoke with Brandon Riley who is the Director of User Experience with www.tuggle.it .
Brandon was cool to speak with and mentioned how using “tuggleit” has been a revolutionizing of safe social interaction within his student ministry. Here’s what he wanted me to post:
I wanted to let you know about a new resource for youth/college ministries. www.tuggle.it
Basically it’s a localized social network built on top of a ministry management platform. We have 400+ users in our student ministry at my church who login daily to communicate with others as well as sign up for the latest event or small group.
Some of the key features that make Tuggle Unique:
*localized (only people from your ministry can connect with other people in the ministry)
*testimony field on user’s profile
*no friends (everyone in you tuggle account is designed to be your friend, but you can tag others as sidekick, mentor, glowworm etc….)
*posts (topics such as evangelism, prayer requests and theology)
*clean, simple and secure (not a chance on Myspace)
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The idea behind tuggle is great…but…as a 17 year old teen I find it cheesy and the emphasis on safe and secure right on the homepage makes it sound a little obsessive. My church is currrently working with ccb.com and other website designers to create an up-to-date and “cool” looking networking site. This is a long, and somewhat expensive process though. In the meantime we stay connected through special groups on facebook.com
Our group is fairly small (13-26 students) and we use tuggle. This really is a phenomenal platform for youth ministries. I have suggested it to every youth minister/Sunday School teacher/volunteer I know. I haven’t heard a single complaint.
Sounds great for churches with huge youth groups.