Recently, I had read a few things about a new social network called eCirkit. After hearing about it, I decided to go sign up for their beta version. I should preface this article by emphasizing that this is their beta version and I’m sure they plan on adding features. Prior to giving my review I’ll first share with you eCirkit’s definition of what their site is about.

eCirkit is a constantly evolving, web based application that employs the latest, most innovative technologies to make the user experience as dynamic and stimulating as the internet will allow. While its functionality is constantly pushing the evelope, eCirkit still retains older, practical methodologies (e-mail, videos, etc.) but delivers them in a means that is quicker and smarter than the most commonly-used “social networking” sites.

There are only 2 pages that make up eCirkit, your control panel CP and your profile page. UNLIMITED actions can be performed on either of these pages without ever refreshing.
After signing up for eCirkit, I received the standard confirmation email saying thank you for signing up. I proceeded to attempt to login, and failed on the first two attempts. This was not because my password was incorrect, but because I had failed to properly clear my browser cache, which is supposedly a requirement of the site (not a smart move on their part). After logging in, I waited patiently for about 45 seconds for my homepage to load (a time period that the average user would definitely not wait for).

From the homepage I could perform the following features:

• View mail from users,
• Send mail to users that I’m connected to,
• View my calendar, and
• chat with friends. This was all fine and dandy except for the fact that I had no way of browsing through existing users. I’m not sure if they intend to be a social network, but I surely can’t be very social if there is no way for me to create new relationships.

While I in no way enjoy bashing new websites that I’m checking out, this one is hard to say many positive things about. While I think that they are aiming to make a fully AJAX based profile, and think that this could be a positive step, the site currently is practically unusable. Unfortunately, the existing version isn’t completely AJAX based, has annoyingly long page refresh times, and doesn’t provide me with a way to communicate with other people (besides the two default support people that are my contacts). Sorry to the people of eCirkit, currently your site is an unusable social network. Once you become usable let me know and I’ll give you another shot.