The Shelf Life of Social Networks
by JuliaSocial Networks are like nightclubs. When I worked at Bolt Peters, Nate Bolt and I use to discuss this a lot: They’re cool to hang out at for a little while, but eventually, they’re dull, there’s nobody new and people stop going. I was reminded of this with the slew of Facebook friend requests I received this week from friends, colleagues, UX Week attendees, and speakers. It seems like not long ago I was receiving MySpace invites from family, high school, and college friends — but these days, I get fewer and fewer. Perhaps I’m just not as popular as I thought I was, or perhaps the new nightclub is enjoying the equivalent of the line around the block, and the old one is losing its crowd.
I recently talked to a few people about this, and most of them said they couldn’t decide if they should join Facebook or Linked-in. My question to all the social networks is: Why can we only *be* at one place at a time on the internet? After all, the internet isn’t really like a nightclub. Wired has recently written about the need for social networks to open up. Why hasn’t someone created a social network aggregator where I can see, and be logged into all my social networks at once?
Right now it seems like Facebook is the new place to be. And right now I’m asking myself, “Why would I want to go anywhere else? This place is great!” My bet is that Facebook too, like any trendy nightclub, will fade out and there will be yet another cool online nightclub equivalent to join. Which begs the question, should social networks just do what nightclubs do every two years and just shut down and start over?
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August 25th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Well, there *is* Spokeo that seems to be a good social network aggregating status update type thingy (note that I’m not affiliated - I’m just a user). Perhaps we ask too much of our social networking software to assume one can be logged into one network at once - that there is One Anything To Rule Them All. As much as we want it to happen, maybe it won’t - too technically complicated (although SNIX may address this), and too politically delicate (see everywhere else for details). Perhaps OpenID and SXIP start the conversation, as it were - and it’s up to some enterprising young startup to work out the kinks, as it were…
August 27th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
okay, so i AM affiliated with the product i’m about to plug, but we’re working on a site that (hopefully) answers some of the questions you’re posing. it’s called readr, it’s been around for a bit more than a week, and though there’s much, much more work ahead of us, i think it’s got promise.
(of course, if i didn’t think so, i wouldn’t work on it.)
August 28th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
A couple of 2¢:
There is multiple issues to address here. One, would be the aggregation of all your social network activities so that you can reduce the time spent on keeping up with your friends. Facebook is attempting to deal with this by allowing other networks’ updates into its system. Two, there is the issue of profile portability. So, if I am already set up on Flickr, or Twitter and I want to sign up for another network, why would I have to re-enter all my information? Is there some microformat that can be employed and recognized to ease that adoption pain. Same goes for migrating or copying all your existing friends into the new network. Third, how do you manage multiple personalities in your social networks? For example, my LinkedIn people may not be the ones I want following me on Twitter. So, my privacy or circle of friends may vary from network to network. If there is a One Anything To Rule Them All, it needs to take that into account as well.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
[...] several communities and share in the sentiment expressed in this Adaptive Path’s blog “The Shelf Life of Social Networks. ” In the article, the author Julia observes that “they’re cool to hang out at for a [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I like the idea of separate entities for each network. I use each for different purposes — much like every club has different things I might like. Also, I wanted to address your point about social networks losing their luster after a while. I agree, but think the reason isn’t the network itself but the people and the strength of the relationships. I have 4,400 friends on Myspace but often feel lost. It happens I think mostly because you dont really have that one on one friendship that you try and nurture. My best friends there I keep in contact with because I make an effort to go to their pages and see what they’re up to.
To me each network is different — I use myspace to promote my music, while linkedin to promote my fledging web career. I dont want to share the same content or profile. Once you open up the network access, then they lose their uniqueness — much like why I like to clubhop.
August 31st, 2007 at 7:36 am
Don’t forget special-purpose social networks. The WSJ had an article about this a few days ago where they talked about social networks for professionals (doctors, lawyers, army, etc.).
There are also social networks for common things such as diabetes. TuDiabetes.com was started in June and now has over 800 members, and I’m one of them. The growth is because the members depend on each other for support and information sharing.
I’ll bet we see more social networks that are aimed at specific chronic diseases and other things that impact our life in significant ways (widows, parents with ADD children, etc.). We’ll go to these networks to ask questions and to learn, not necessarily to hang out with our friends. And they will see continued success and traffic, though the members will join and leave depending on their life circumstances.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
“Social Networks are like nightclubs”
Cited in social networks analogies
June 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
[...] blogged about some of the project challenges (See: Rethinking Myspace, Myspace & Creative path, The Shelf-life of Social Networks) but in the end, it seems as though the redesign turned out to be one big Facebook BITE. According [...]
July 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Lol…you’re so right about social networks feeling like nightclubs…I’m so addicted!