Mogopop rocks. You’re thinking, is this some kind of new popsicle I can yank out of a frozen food bin at the supermarket? Absolutely not. But if you go to Mogopop, you might be able to find, say, a complete list of supermarkets in your area with a bin-by-bin description of each type of frozen food by location and tier.

Then you can download the list, a multimedia mini-application, onto your iPod, and walk through the store with directions while listening to your favorite hair metal band.

To put it succinctly, Mogopop is a new multimedia sharing website–music, video, print–created to work solely with the iPod. And while I’m not usually a big fan of software/web concepts based on proprietary chunks of hardware like the iPod, Mogopop might just make me a believer.

When you go to the Mogopop site you have one of two choices: Create Content or Download Content. It’s a friendly opening page. Stripped down, poppy, pleasing color scheme.

Everything the Web 2.0 crowd is looking for right off the bat. Click on the Create Content it takes you right to a sign up page, but the Download button takes you to the site’s offering.

Your best bet is to browse around a bit first. Go to Download, and it takes you to the main spread. Here again the page doesn’t disappoint. The layout is easy to figure out and right away you see what the place is all about: user generated content.

If you’re a fan of In-N-Out burger, there’s a guide to all locations with street addresses. Then it gives you the down low on all the secret orders you can make at the counter. I’m loving this.

I downloaded the In-N-Out guide and tried it out. The iPod interface that Mogopop designed to transfer the mini-apps from site to iPod is just as user-friendly as the rest, and the mini-media package on the iPod took up a negligible amount of space.

I’m thinking: cool, this is free? Yup.

Now, how great is Mogopop after the glow wears off? Well here’s where it falls short.

I tried the site out a couple times and sure, I like it, but Mogopop is trying to build an entire community around one piece of hardware. As a user, I’m looking at the work I’m going to have to put in towards building my mini-applications (which is an easy process)–guides, playlists, and the rest–but I know this isn’t going to be a body of work that lasts.

Let’s say I really pour myself into Mogopop. I’m the Mogo-King. What happens in five years when everyone’s moved on to a new piece of hardware? What about all the effort I’ve put into creating cool, envelope pushing mini-apps for the community?

Right now, it looks like I just move on to whatever’s next. If Mogopop really wants to catch on, it’s going to have to make this offering available across different platforms. Not only that, but offer all the latest user-generated, web-based features on top of the iPod ‘bait’.

The key here, and I’ll be watching, is to see if Mogopop can successfully implement other Web 2.0 concepts like user-rated news, extensive interactive comments, and the ability to form groups and sub-communities based on specific interests and location.

In the near future, that’ll be the test of time separating the men from the boys in popular online sites. Because we want something that lets you not only actively contribute to and ‘build’, but network and communicate easily.

If Mogopop doesn’t instantly give the impression that it’s a site that will morph just as our fast changing generation’s tastes do, I don’t see it being any more than a cool, novelty, “Oh, hey, that’s kind of interesting,” website.

Time will be the ultimate test of Mogopop. For now, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to check out.

About The Author

Torrey Meeks is a Blast Magazine staff writer and part of the original 01/01/07 launch crew

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