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February 09, 2004
After The Frenzy, People Don't Feel Friendly
Posted by Stowe Boyd
A recent piece by Verne Kopytoff of the San Francisco Chronicle digs into the emptiness of social networking without purpose. If your networking activities are not serving an aim aside from gaming the system -- seeing who can be more connected, who has more fans, or whatever -- at some point the fun wears off. This algal bloom is gumming up the plumbing in social networking, and will lead to a hype bounce, when the anti-pundits start writing "I told you so" articles.
Kopytoff writes:
"But the question remains whether the Web sites can keep users interested beyond the initial few months. After users link up with all their friends and browse their profiles -- then what?"
It's a question that many social networking companies are only now addressing. Some are planning to add new features for dating, job hunting and business networking, activities that are already taking place more informally on the Web sites."
The secret (is it a secret?) to supporting anything online is to a/ find an existing constituency that is underserved and b/ serve it with tools that augment what is already going on.
The recent froth over Urkut -- the Google SNA that provides very little support for anything other than making friends and sending messages -- is a good example of empty networking. There is no there, there.
Meanwhile the real value proposition for SNAs -- getting "work" done faster and better -- is being pushed to the back so that everyone can roll up the rugs to have a party.
Comments (2)
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1. Scott Allen on February 9, 2004 11:02 AM writes...
Need I say it? People define purpose, not technology. That's why Yahoo Groups, certain Usenet groups, and discussion forums are still every bit as effective for business networking as the new wave of social networking sites.
Don't get me wrong -- users can derive value from the additional features, but most won't. What most people and companies won't get is that the greater challenges of online social networking -- building trust, creating credibility, focusing your attention in the places where you can build relevant contacts, etc., have VERY little to do with the technology itself.
I think it's a classic 80/20 rule -- only about 20% has to do with the technology, and the other 80% has to do with the human factors and soft skills.
- Scott -
Permalink to Comment2. Peter Saint-Andre on February 9, 2004 06:43 PM writes...
I've been doing a little experiment: whenever I receive an invitation to join a social networking site or accept someone as a "friend", I ask them whether this social networking stuff is worth it. A fair percentage say that as a result of getting involved they have connected with old friends and colleagues, set up new business meetings, gotten job interviews, etc. So it seems to be working for a lot of people. It's easy to speculate that these things are worthless, but it's always worth it to actually ask people....
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