CivicActions

Social Networks, in all their forms, are a central organizing paradigm. Our values, education, health, diet, vacation destination, favorite drugs and sex partners are generated and propagated through Social Networks. These networks may not determine our choices, but they certainly influence them; they are inextricably bound to how we make our choices. If the Social Networks we inhabit don't provide or accept our choices, more often then not we'll go and find new ones.

Why then are online Social Networking sites so awful? Raise your hand if you love a Social Networking site. If you raised your hand you are either: a high-tech recruiter, 18 years old, a venture capitalist, a software developer (working on social networking sites), or married to one of the above. Not true you say? Okay, let's try this: “Do you love the site's software, or the people in it? How much do you love the actual feature set, or the user experience?” At this point we should be on the same page – Social Network sites are crap.

In his article “Anatomy of a Successful Social Network” Jawad Shuaib breaks it down:

“Social networks suck. There is a new social network launched every other day, and they suck as well.... These days, once I sign up for a social network, I sweep through various corners of their network to examine what works and what does not. For the most part, I haven't found anything remarkable; almost each of these has the standard features, i.e. a blog, comment area, album, song/videos widgets, etc.”

Shuaib's premise is that the large, dedicated Social Networking sites do not provide either compelling value or a compelling user experience (unless you like being bombarded with Google ads). He goes on to discuss the future in terms of “niche” communities and compensation – which we'll return to below. In an older critique (June, 2005) Molly Wood on CNET.com brings up five related points about the limitations of Social Neworking sites, including the observations “There's nothing to do there”, “It takes too much time,” and “Strangers kind of suck." Amen.

This leaves us with a conundrum. If Social Networks are so important to us as human beings, and yet Social Networking sites suck, how then do we reflect and augment the social networks that guide and support our lives in our online experience? Actually, if you consider this for a couple of minutes you then realize that there is a huge, successful market for social networking software, and I'm not talking MySpace -

• We use email
• We use IM
• We post blogs
• We share pictures
• We share links
• We participate in forums
• We are on list serves
• We check member profiles
• We trust user ratings
• We send Web pages to friends
• We do meet-ups
• We send and respond to invitations

No one will argue that eVite doesn't offer a powerful service. There are a myriad of digital features and services that connect people to one another. Sites with new ones launch daily – many of them useful and some potentially “big”. These features are already part of our lives and significantly augment our social experience. Technology clearly has an important role to play in how we find and connect to each other – but so far we've only scratched the surface. None of the features listed above, in themselves, provide a completely satisfying “Social Networking” website experience. Of course, some sites like Meet Up or Flickr have become huge because they enable a specific type of Social Networking to occur. But few people will ultimately feel a loyalty or deep connection to these feature-dependent sites once their services are replicated elsewhere. Even the mega-sites, like YouTube and MySpace, will face user loyalty challenges once the key features they offer are widely available elsewhere – something that is already starting to happen.

Shuaib talks about the answers to be found in “niche” markets for Social Networking sites. By “niche” he's talking about the long tail of smaller sites and bulletin boards that cater to specific audiences. He states “When you have something as massive as MySpace, it just becomes a giant playground with no real sense of community or belonging to anything. However when you are part of a smaller community it seems to provide a great value to the end user; that is, a sense of unity and purpose.”

Shuaib is onto something – but his analysis is a bit off. The key point isn't that Social Network sites are limited by their size – it's whether they can generate value for the user, regardless of their size. If a group finds utility or value in a particular site, they'll go there. We all know this from our obsessive use of Google. Size certainly can make a site more attractive – large communities produce more content, for example – but mega-sites degrade a user's personal interaction experience.

The simple fact is that no company can create a Social Network by itself. Rather, Social Networks are created and maintained by the people who participate in them. A website is an artificial container for a Social Network, and can't in itself attract users to come back from more. The users' desire is what brings them back, and they can't be made to return by a site building walls.

We're seeking the point where social networks and user utility converge, where – like at the end of a rainbow – there be gold. But unlike rainbows, that destination is not over the next hill. It is, as Shuaib points out, all around us – in niches.

These niches have been around for a long time. They are social and they are sticky. Many are populated by geeks looking for tech knowledge, but since the beginning of online communications (on the pre-Web UseNet) there have been affinity-based destinations for car aficionados, PTA members, and gourmands, as well as hackers. Recently, we've seen even larger niches forming. Unlike their predecessors, these niches are not found in the dark back roads of the Internet. Many people discover them by listening to the latest scandal reported on the nightly news. It's the blogesphere, and it's hiding in plain site.

The blogesphere is the next big Social Networking opportunity. But make no mistake, it doesn't invite the same, lingering question as MySpace: "Where will the users be tomorrow?” The blogesphere is big, and it's growing. Any questions?

(Shout out to Ken Jordan for the editorial assist!)