Sometimes the imitators do it best.

Check out Rohit's analysis of Flixster and the vast array of social mechanisms its lifts directly from other successful sites.

clipped from rohitbhargava.typepad.com The Ultimate Social Network You Haven't Heard Of Ok, maybe you have ... and it just might be Flixster, a social network dedicated to film, actors, Hollywood and movie fans. The obvious question you could be wondering is how it can be "the ultimate" when there are so many other social networks that have been around longer, pull more traffic, have more users and generate more buzz? The main reason is because after using the site, you realize that they have taken what seems like every trick from every other social network, and integrated it into their own site to add to a user's experience. For example, visiting an artist's profile page with it's aggregation of images and videos has a look that reminds you of a cross between a Technorati search and a MySpace profile page. In fact, you can select a skin for your own page or add one to the system - just like you can with MySpace. Users of Netflix will recognize the rating systems for DVDs, however Flixster extends this to films that have not yet come out and includes links to trailers. The site has lots of images of actors and actresses - with a built-in scale for rating taken right from the pages of HotorNot. You can browse for specific actors, or use the Random feature to find a random page, the same powerful philosophy behind services like StumbleUpon and much of curiosity marketing. Each image and video trailer also has code included below it to cut and paste into your own blog post or other content (just like YouTube). Users can submit news stories about actors as links and other users can vote for them just like Digg and any other social news site. Oh, and you can comment on everything - photos, images and news stories. The social network element of the site is equally engaging, with the ability to search for people who like the same types of films as you (based on the results of their Movie Compatibility Test) and get in contact. The Movie Night Planner also lets you and a group friends share movie choices you would like to see, evaluate times, and rate the films based on trailers. I have railed in the past against the suckiness of some movie theater websites. Flixster is the exact opposite - a social network dedicated to movie fans with just about everything a movie fan could ever want all rolled into a single interface. About the only thing missing was the big movie advertising. That gap probably won't exist for too much longer. Sony's cool new Face of the Fan - SpiderMan Movie Network promotion could be a great first candidate ...