The problem with social success
Young social networks have a Goldilocks problem. If none of your friends are on a network, it’s dull. If everyone is on there, then it starts to feel a little crowded. You have to watch what you say a little more. You can’t maintain as many quality relationships. You find yourself drowning in dull personal information. MG Siegler has a great post about this problem in relation to location-based networks, but I think the issue runs deeper. Twitter can still overwhelm newbies. Facebook had to drastically overhaul its newsfeed system to cope with the problem. Clearly, this is an ongoing issue.
Why is it so hard to build a personal network composed of only the right people? There are a lot of factors here – impulsively friending new acquaintances, failing to prune old, stale relationships and following everyone who follows you out of simple politeness. But I think the real problem lies with our choice of networks. Instead of having a network for old friends and a network for casual acquaintances and another for family members and so forth, most of us use a handful of omni-networks that are meant to keep us up to date on every last relationship we’ve got. And that’s overwhelming. Sometimes we care about some people and sometimes we care about others and the ability to switch back and forth plays a big role in what we get out of a network. We either need a greater variety of more specialized networks — think LinkedIn — or more tools like Facebook networks and Twitter lists need to become more robust and easier to use. At the same time, social media power users need to realize that the power of their networks isn’t in sheer size, but in their ability to monitor and maintain those networks. Even if that does require a little more work.
Do ever feel overwhelmed by your own friend lists? How do manage to maintain quality relationships among a barrage of data about irrelevant people? What can networks do to make managing our relationships easier?
Does a network need a huge footprint to be successful?
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Tags: foursquare, information management, information overload, twitter
Categories: Editor's Take
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Posted by Sima Dahl on December 16th, 2009 at 11:38 am
It’s an interesting dilemma. There are connections and chit-chat, and there are real friends and meaningful conversation. The trick may be to decide what results or what level of interaction you want from any given social network and add contacts accordingly. Do we need micro-networks for close friends (remember micro-sites?) Once you have to start watching what you say, or selectively sending out updates, scale and intimacy become real problems.
Posted by JC Goldenstein on December 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Yes it’s like cars. If no one has a car having one is of no use because there’s no gas stations. If there’s too many cars it creates traffic.
In my field I thought a professional network exclusively for vetted commercial real estate decision makers made sense. So we created it and are now etting good feedback about our balance between quality and quantity.
I also see new networks for lawyers, IT guys etc. More to come probably, just like after CBS, NBC and ABC in broadcast TV we saw the emergence of interest-focused cable channels.
Best, JC
Founder and President
http://www.CREOpoint.com
The exclusive online meeting point for commercial real estate leaders worldwide
New York
Posted by The problem with social success | The Perfect Storm Team on December 17th, 2009 at 2:43 am
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Posted by Ted Weismann on December 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Jesse – I think you are on the money with the fact that most people treat every social network the same way — friending anyone and anybody and sharing (mostly) the same information on each network. I think (or at least hope) that we’ll see more and more people take a step back and take into account the nuance of each service when determining who they are connected to and how they use them. This will make the experience better for all.
Posted by Facebook Demographic Data | Tech Startups on December 17th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
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Posted by A Bit About Social Networking – and How It’s Not : Ephemeral Thoughts on January 7th, 2010 at 6:27 am
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Posted by Ted Weismann on February 5th, 2010 at 2:39 am
Jesse – I think you are on the money with the fact that most people treat every social network the same way — friending anyone and anybody and sharing (mostly) the same information on each network. I think (or at least hope) that we'll see more and more people take a step back and take into account the nuance of each service when determining who they are connected to and how they use them. This will make the experience better for all.