I thought I was done talking about this stuff, but I guess not. In response to my FriendRank post, I noticed something on StartupSkills.com that I've been hearing lots of recently:
Like so many people, I've used Friendster and found it an intriguing idea from both a technical and business standpoint. It is a revolutionary concept, although by no means is it original. Social networking is a subject taught in business schools around the globe. The 'entrepreneurial model' of social networks in particular is an extremely valuable concept to learn and practice and many people do. But why should we embrace a technology based on this?
And, later...
I personally believe social software has little future primarily because of this. Just like Friendster, I was intrigued at first but after awhile I realized that this was simply another technology solution looking for a problem.
This is what I like to call missing the point.
If you really think that Friendster, Tribe, LinkedIn, or any of those other sites are going to survive doing what they're doing today, you're really smoking something. However, if you think that also means the technology isn't worthwhile--that the notion of modeling social networks in software is a pointless exercise, well then you're really smoking something good. You couldn't be more wrong.
Think about how things work in the real world. So many of my decisions are already influenced by people I know and people they know. Job decisions, buying decisions, business deals, what movie to see decisions, dating, etc. The list goes on and on.
Get yourself out of the mind set of social network software for the sake of social network software and start thinking about how adding a social networking component to existing systems could improve them.
That's an important point, so I'm going to say it again with emphasis:
That's where the future of systems like Friendster, LinkedIn, Tribe and all those other systems lie. Right now they're just figuring out the platform. The metadata to capture. The basic functionality on the back-end. The current search and browse interfaces suck, but it doesn't matter. The real value of this stuff comes from integrating it with services like Amazon.com or Google or your favorite on-line movie tickets site. Like many things on-line, it will move from novelty to utility.
If you really think that Friendster scored over $10 million in VC funding on the premise of being nothing more than a "browse your friends" site, get real.
Or maybe I'm the one smoking crack. But I'd bet you $1,000 I'm not.
UPDATE: An excellent response. That was fast. Damn.
Posted by jzawodn at January 03, 2004 07:35 PM
The best thing about Friendster is the plethora of B-list celebs. I have the fat girl from "Rich girls" and, I think, Simon Rex on my list. Rock.
the best example that I can think of that emphasizes your points is epinions. the people that control content and so on have gotten kinda nazi-ist over the years, but the idea was to post your opinions/reviews, and based on your 'network' get better reviews of things you might be trying to buy.
So the whole point of these social networks is to find good stuff to smoke?
Something to notice about social networks here..there is somewhat a phase of this going on in blogging. People are linked to one another unwittingly through blogging. When you add a link to your blog pointing to somebody, its kinda like..
Jeremy knows X through Y, and then it becomes Jeremy knows Y. These things exist everywhere. I can't even begin to think of what things are wrought on (as you've said) by relationships. Its so amazing that it scares me sometimes..
Hey dude - right on, I totally agree with you. Here's what I posted.....
I'm excited about what happens when social networking is glued into a content play, like the AlwaysOn Network - or into a gaming portal.
:-)
The issue isn't whether or not Social Networking is a useful function, it is whether the usefulness outweighs the nuisance of getting involved. My analysis is that the fundamental problem is that the more useful an individual is to the network, the less likely he or she is to join because the benefit to that individual is less. The only way it will work in practice is if the social network is completely transparent: it takes zero effort for anyone to join. And I don't see how you can get there without serious privacy issues.
My biggest gripe about friendster is that it seems to be too 'dating oriented'. I think that Jeremy is right, though, that they need to incorporate into more commonplace items.
For instance, I watched the HBO series Carnivale. Finding other people that were also watching it was somewhat difficult. Obviously, I could go to the HBO bulletin boards and read them and so on. However, a more attractive solution, to me, anyways, would be able to see people within your 'friends area' in Friendster that had a simluar interest, and have the ability to talk to them.
Maybe not the whole 6 bazillion people that you're connected too, maybe you could limit it to a friend's friend, but, you'd most likely end up with fewer trolls and better overall discussion.
I think it'd also be an interesting place for education. Of course, this would take some doing. As an example. I know a reasonable amount of networking. Someone else knows a reasonable amount about making analog synthasizers (and how to spell them correctly). We may not know each other directly. But my friend can 'vouche' for that person's knowledge, and for mine as well. We could trade the information that we both know about to both advance our interests. Or, more formally, some type of 'classes', although, that would take a lot more work.
I've also had the idea for a long time of making it possible for people to create their own databases on a simple online web form. I'm not talking about anything major. But, someplace that I could put the titles in my cd collection. Or my book collection. Or my movie collection. I could then choose to make items public or private or somewhere in between. People could then see that I have every Ian Fleming book, and that if you have an interest in those books as well, we could talk about it, and so on.
Of course, that moves into more of a 'desktop' paradigm, which could be very interesting in and of itself.
I think that what the various 'social networking' things are doing out there are interesting, I think that there's going to be some major refinements and advancements in the area, and most likey, it's not going to be done by the major names in the market right now.
I read the various links pertaining to this discussion and the main question is "why should I share my precious contacts?" and I think the answer is "why should I have to?". Only the system to which the social network feature is added needs to know who my friends are; I should be able to control who 'browses' my friends.
Therefore I feel the best feature of social networking is that for each person that cold-contacts me I can be told how 'close' I am to that person. Friendrank probably makes sense in this context. This puts things in favor of a central database (friendster, yahoo, whatever) that stores the network information rather than techniques for 'advertizing' contact info on websites/blogs.
Hi Jeremy,
We just finished moving to our permanent host. Here's an updated URL in case you'd like to update your article for your readers convenience (the old URL will be 404 any day now).
http://www.startupskills.com/archives/000010.html
I've already updated my trackback, don't forget to do the same.
Now what about that bet?
The Friendster phenomenon, in my opinion, represents the "coming out" of Matchdotcommers. It is an intellgiently and entertaingly disguised dating site.
I've noted in my blog, how there is probably a large group of people who are on Match and Friendster, many for the same purpose, yet the two websites speak in different voices.
Where it isn't used for dating, Friendster represents a solution to the problem of platonic same-sex friendships, previously an underserved market.
The Friendster phenomenon, in my opinion, represents the "coming out" of Matchdotcommers. It is an intellgiently and entertaingly disguised dating site.
I've noted in my blog, how there is probably a large group of people who are on Match and Friendster, many for the same purpose, yet the two websites speak in different voices.
Where it isn't used for dating, Friendster represents a solution to the problem of platonic same-sex friendships, previously an underserved market. - www.generallygenuine.blogspot.com
social networking concepts are now bleending in other sites, the current trend seem to be with phot sharing sites. Share photos, talk about them make friends. Social based on a specific subject or hobby. There seems to a new photosharing site everyday. It is getting ridiculous. And now google has jumped into the social photosharing game too. the one i like is
fotoamigo.com !
how do social networking sites particularly Friendster aid in the improvement of the social lives of people?
Traversable, publicly articulated social network. Participants have the ability to list other profiles as “friends” or “contacts” or some equivalent. This generates a social network graph which may be directed (“attention network” type of social network where friendship does not have to be confirmed) or undirected (where the other person must accept friendship). This articulated social network is displayed on an individual’s profile for all other users to view. Each node contains a link to the profile of the other person so that individuals can traverse the network through friends of friends of friends….
The ABCs of Network Analysis
Valdis Krebs states "organization charts prescribe that work and information flow in a hierarchy, but network mapping reveals [they] actually flow through a vast web of informal channels."
Social network analysis involves the mapping and measuring of these normally invisible relationships between people, providing an organizational X-ray for use by HR managers and consultants.
