The desire to network is as old as humanity and online social networking sites do seem to solve
a need that is different from simply using email, chat and blogging tools separately. However the idea that there will be one big social network platform is the purest form of baloney. The Internet is the platform. Period, end of story. The Facebook social graph platform pitch looks like a classic end of hype cycle attempt to inflate valuation, but as they say, that's another story!
It is an interesting exercise to attempt to theorize how online social networking is likely to evolve once we get past the hype cycle. The best way to start is by looking at the different types of human networks and the motivations that drive them. I see two distinct types of motivation. One is, "I want to communicate better with the people that I already know and trust". The other is, "I want to increase my visibility so that I can connect with more people".
This also fits in with classic consumer marketing theory around lifestage/lifestyle patterns (which simply says that you sell different things in different ways to students, new parents, retirees and so on). The danger in a lot of the current talk about Facebook is that it is all written by and about two consumer types - students and web 2.0 entrepreneurs, who seem to have forgotten that there are other people out there!
Students and web 2.0 entrepreneurs are much more motivated by increasing visibility; they need visibility to get dates and deals. When you are young, you leave the family and want to make friends and form new relationships. When you start working you need to get the trust and attention of the people who already have what you want (fame, fortune, etc.).
In other networks, trust is more critical and these will therefore be more like "gated communities." Recently TechCrunch panned and ridiculed a gated community for models (geeks and models don't mix well?). However, I completely get why models might want a gated community and don't want other people lurking around. Is that a huge media play? No, but it does fulfill a basic need and it could be a viable niche business. This is classic "specialty enthusiast publishing" and that is a multi-billion dollar market.
The most obvious gated community/trust based network is the family ("the network you don't get to choose"). Many people want better tools to stay in touch with extended family now that families tend to be so geographically dispersed. I recently discovered a wonderful blog post from a niece about her travels in India; and I discovered that she and I had been there at the same time and did not know it. But families don't want the whole world looking in while they communicate. I don't see a business here -- families will hack together what they need from existing tools; email and phone work pretty well, for example, even without blogs.
If a gated community for models seems small and frivolous, what about one for doctors? Doctors are the primary gateway to healthcare spending which is now about 25% of GDP in America, so this is not a little niche. Trust is critical in this case. Doctors need to be confident that they are able to communicate with each other without the pharma or the insurance industries eavesdropping.
Gated communities can have negative connotations - rich people hiding away from the rest of the world, bigotry, snobbery, even networks of people with malicious intent - but that is just the world we live in with good guys and bad guys.
Viewed from this perspective, companies are just one more example of a gated community. The Internet dramatically reduces transaction friction, making it easier for networks crossing organization boundaries. We can now see that the 1950’s era "organization man" command and control companies were a transitory phenomenon based on post-War mass production. Companies are now far more "porous" (open to the external world) at every level and so in our work life we may be part of many networks - not just the network defined by the organization chart.
However, the trust issue for companies remains very real. You cannot simply allow everybody to see everything. The rollout of web 2.0 tools within the enterprise will be all about the push and the pull of these two forces. Technically this is all about security, rights and permissions control; which has been around in different ways for a long time. So this looks less like a technology opportunity than an implementation, consulting, professional services type of opportunity.
A lot of the debate about Facebook vs. MySpace or any other social network is just a question of choice. It's a question of "where do you want to hang out?" That's why the students in Facebook will move on if Mom & Dad join. This is simply an update to the old prviate club, which may mean that we see more club type rules emerging online. The two principle rules are a) a new member has to be proposed by an existing member and b) through some form of voting arrangement a member can be "blackballed" (thrown out of the club). These type of exclusivity rules help ensure trust through member/peer pressure.
Looking at all these types of social networks, I see 4 questions that will drive the evolution of net-based social networks:
What do you think the future holds for social networking? Care to take a stab at the questions presented above? Care to pose any more? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Social Network Types, Motivations, and the Future.
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Following my post on types of Social Networking sites, I saw a NYT article about sites targeting older people. Two days after that, Techrunch posted an article about massive layoffs at Eons, one of the Baby Boomer sites mentioned in... Read More
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As a fairly passionate Facebook user, I found this article very interesting. First off, let me say that I am not a student or someone working as a web 2.0 developer. I am a primary school teacher aged 35 that helps other teachers to use ICT in their classrooms. I wouldn't fit into the sterotype of users that you mention. However, I have a number of friends on Facebook who are all working and all around the same age as me and I think that we are a fairly large demographic on Facebook judging by the number of friends each one of my friends has and this is growing all the time.
My mother has joined Facebook and this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I think it is great that she can be kept in the loop as well. When her friends request to be my friend, then I find that slightly weird but this doesn't happen very often.
I find keeping up with everyone through Facebook so easy and love the sense of community it brings. Recently, my friend's dad was killed and I have set up a Group on Facebook where we all can go and leave tributes - this has proved to be a powerful tool with many people posting up photos and comments.
I can't see myself leaving the Facebook community for some time. I might change and evolve but Facebook can evolve with me. In terms of not getting the exposure to other ideas due to being in a 'gated' community, I think that is not the case. I have read discussion threads from people I have never met before through the friends of my friends and through joining groups in Facebook with others I don't know. Facebook is not my only window onto the world - I am subscribed to a number of blogs and these grow all the time so if Facebook doesn't always give me a huge number of new perspectives then to me that is not a problem - I have other avenues for that.
This has turned into quite a long comment! I really enjoy this blog so thanks for the discussion.
Posted by: Suzie Vesper | September 12, 2007 5:07 PMGreat piece! Lays out the issues nicely. I think one of the biggest issues around networking will be how we manage the porous nature of our behind and in-front of the firewall networks and data - alloweing for the multi-faceted nature of how we behave in the real world - i.e. a social event can lead to a work contact and visa versa - we are serendipitous and multi-dimensional. There are rules and codes of conduct and behavior in each arena but the speed of moving from one role to another is rapidly changing the game.
Another dynamic that may be the result of the oxymoron that is the "strength of weak ties" is the growing importance and value I think we will start to place on the value of deep close ties.
Posted by: deb schultz | September 12, 2007 5:14 PMThis is wise post and spot on too. I think figuring out these questions is really important, particularly for social startups.
Posted by: Alex Iskold | September 12, 2007 6:08 PM> Technically this is all about security, rights and
> permissions control; which has been around in different
> ways for a long time.
The issues have been around for a long time, but there are still no good technical solutions that are both granular by object/asset or file and which can support web scale (millions of users).
Checking permissions for each object? You can count out RADIUS or LDAP: neither can scale. What are we left with? What can give granularity, flexibility and support countless users?
As a compromise, both enterprises and sites have lowered the bar and only set broad permissions.
Today's social networks don't let you set flexible, fine-grained controls on a single image or URL.
Flexible ACLs would let a 13 year old on Myspace avoid stalkers. She could put her gymnastics photo online and set permissions to show her picture only to others with 'Castalaja Jr High Gymnastics Team' in their profile. And let my boyfriend 'joe1994' see it too. And 'mom'. Not broad strokes like "friends" or "under 18".
If we had high-performance, fine grained ACLs, I could leave comments on blogs that were only viewable by my friends or named individuals. Nuggets left around the web, waiting to be discovered.
The broadcast mode we have today is good (and will stay with us) but technically, ACLs needs to become fine-grained before adults can comfortably accommodate the complex relationships they in their "normal" lives in webspace. Today, their only options are email/IM.
The biggest barrier to adults joining social networks is that they have more complex social relationships than kids have, and sites don't technically accommodate the needs of adults.
In other words, the ham-fisted 'privacy' settings of today's social networks do not allow users to segment complex interpersonal relationships appropriately.
And to do so is an enormous technical challenge.
We need flexible, private interactions in public online spaces. And that's simply not available yet.
Posted by: Israel LHeureux | September 12, 2007 11:21 PMAdding to the discussion about gated communities I have written a piece of reflection on it based on the readings of "The cult of the amateur", "The long tail" and "Access".
http://beamtenherrschaft.blogspot.com/2007/07/do-amateurs-live-in-gated-communities.html
Communities are always threatened by social and cognitive lock-in situations (too many strong ties). Disturbances companies face because of fierce competition may not be as important communities in their ecological niches.
Posted by: Ralf Klamma | September 12, 2007 11:36 PMFacebook is 'da bomb!
Posted by: Mark | September 13, 2007 2:27 AMeot.
@Israel (#4)
It's completely true that there is a level of discomfort for adults in bringing over their complex relationships to the webspace. However, I believe that this level of "comfort" (or discomfort comes from having such a disruptive medium (the internet) introduced *during* their adult lives.
Kids have grown up with the internet, and are therefore perfectly comfortable sharing (for better or worse) all sorts of information with the world. The reality is that the web is here to stay, and twenty or thirty years from now, the kids that have grown up with it will be leading business, the media, and government. The world is changing, as are our definitions of what is appropriate/suitable to share in what contexts. Social networks are certainly speeding up this process.
Posted by: Benjamin DiGregorio | September 13, 2007 9:04 AM# 1. Thanks, I love it when the facts make me change my opinion! I saw this post
http://bsgasia.blogspot.com/2007/07/facebook-tipping-point.html indicating that this might also be true in Asia and that is pretty significant. Maybe my comments are more applicable to MySpace (definitely more the "cool" crowd) and that the transition from Student to work is a transition that people have to make and so maybe Facebook can retain its current core while branching out to the mainstream.
# 4. Yes, I was almost certainly glossing over in a very 30,000 foot way the requirement for much more granular data level access control/security. I wonder if this is a space for a new vendor? Or a standard? Or features that the current incumbents will add to their products?
Posted by: bernard lunn | September 13, 2007 9:10 AM#7 (Benjamin) I absolutely agree with you that it's extra disruptive to have the medium introduced during their adult lives.
But adults have adapted pretty well to email, which does provide decently flexible ACLs.
And it's also true that kids growing up on the internet share everything but I would still argue that status quo is partially due to lack of options by vendors.
If you could give kids flexible privacy from creeps, adults or other outcasts, while allowing 'profile-based' matches, they could develop (even) richer networks online. And more adults might have a go at it too.
Posted by: Israel LHeureux | September 13, 2007 10:01 AMIt is strange that no one has brought up internet stalking. This is one reason for a Facebook type community and why I have drifted away from StumbleUpon after being a top stumbler in their pre no-follow tag days.
A lot of people may say that only whiners complain about stalking online. It's not real. It's only the internet. And so on...
While my wife and I were active on StumbleUpon, an angry Stumbler decided to target us, using what we linked to to track every possible detail about us and post it on one page.
And he threatened death and more, after posting our address.
This is a real threat that has to be considered.
Posted by: Stephan Miller | September 13, 2007 12:26 PM@ Israel (#4)
You are correct in saying that fleixble ACLs are a technical challenge, but it is one that Multiply solved years ago. We allow users to set ACLs on a post-by-post basis, with options including individual users, direct contacts, your entire network and public. When someone visits your Multiply site, they only see the albums, videos and blogs to which they have access based on each item's ACL.
Also important to note is that your Multiply network is built on mutually confirmed real-world relationships, which ultimately gives them more social relevancy than the school/city/company "networks" on Facebook.
Posted by: David Hersh | September 14, 2007 12:11 PMInteresting post, thanks. In addition to the 4 questions you raise, I'd like to add the construct of Social Capital, and what that means for online social networks. I recently wrote down my thoughts on this issue at http://www.ux-sa.com/2007/09/social-capital-in-online-social.html.
Posted by: Rian | September 19, 2007 10:05 PMSorry - got an extra period in the link there. It should be just http://www.ux-sa.com/2007/09/social-capital-in-online-social.html
Posted by: Rian | September 19, 2007 10:08 PM