The Internet seems to have had a strange effect on people when it comes to the sharing of opinions. It's as though the chance to air a particular point of view to the world - whether the world in question is a few close friends or thousands of total strangers - is too good an opportunity to pass up. Put a microphone in front of someone and they will talk, whether they have anything to say or not.

What were once random thoughts that would come to mind, stay there for a while, and then carry on their merry way now get written down for others to read. The services offering a virtual soapbox are both numerous and broad. The obvious candidates are Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and all of the other smaller social networks that exist out there. But there are also personal websites and blogs, and columns and opinion pieces such as those that some of us here at MakeUseOf enjoy writing a little more than we probably should do.

And then there are other, niche websites which cater to opinions and nothing but opinions. Which is more fun than it sounds, amirite?

Amirite.com

Amirite.com is one such website, offering an outlet for people to share their random thoughts and a way of gauging whether the opinions they hold dear are appreciated or shunned by the rest of (online) society. Amirite.com is built entirely around the concept of opinions, enabling you to share your own, or to either agree or disagree with those held and offered up for assessment by others.

You can interact with Amirite and its legion of opinionated users without even signing up for a user account. But remaining anonymous means you can merely add an opinion and/or vote on the opinions of others.

By signing up for, and signing in to, Amirite, you can keep track of all the posts and comments you make, and those you have added as favorites, receive messages, visit the forum and chatroom, follow other users, and even receive achievements for managing to hit certain goals. These range from the unbelievably easy to the impossibly difficult.

Opinionated People Need Sectioning

Opinions are naturally everywhere on Amirite, but thankfully they have been arranged and organized in a number of different ways. The homepage shows all of the featured posts in chronological order, with both written and image posts selected.

You can also select posts that are Just In, or click the 'Random' button to be taken to a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hovering over 'Best' allows you to sort all posts into 'Most Favorited', 'Most Commented', and 'Highest Scoring', as well as other determining factors.

Last but not least is the Topics section, which, as the name suggests, sorts all of the posts into various sub-headings to make finding ones that interest you much easier. Which is obviously invaluable.

A Social Network By Another Name

As much as I can see the value of Amirite as another place for people to air their views, the site is really nothing more than a social network by another name. Without logging in it's just a brief, once-in-a-while stopover for people wanting to see what's going on, but for those logged in all the usual elements employed by social networks are present.

This isn't necessarily a problem, but it does break the notion that Amirite is something else, something unique, something that is offering one main service without getting bogged down in all the minutiae that comes with belonging to a social network of any sort. I can see why the offering has been expanded - after all, how long can a site offering nothing but short observations go before becoming really tiresome? - but it also feels unnecessary and tacked on.

Conclusions

I enjoyed the brief time I spent on Amirite.com. It's one of those sites that gets under your skin, forcing you to keep scrolling down and clicking around to see more wry observations or simple opinions stated by others. But the need to end every post with "amirite?" will send you slowly but surely mad. Or have you sticking your fist through your computer screen.

If you check out Amirite.com then please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments section below. Or if you simply have a view on the present-day need to continually share your opinion with others then, well, share your opinion with others using the space provided. In a post-modern, satirical manner, obviously. You want to, you need to, you will do so regardless.

Image Credit: Horia Varlan