By quick count, I have 37 active social network profiles. Even considering I don’t care about half of these networks (I’m there out of professional curiosity only, which is to say I’m looking to steal ideas,) maintaining more than a handful of walled networks is becoming an effort I’m not willing to give.
In addition to the profiles I maintain at actual social networks, I have profiles at my photo sharing apps. I have profile at my micro blogging apps. I have profiles at my bookmarking apps. I have profiles at my content discovery apps. Et cetera, et cetera. And to add to the mess, each of these profiles has an associated, unique list of friends / contacts.
It’s a system that can’t scale. As the number of apps being positioned as social networks continues to increase, we’re going to find that the fundamental idea behind linking profiles (i.e., adding friends) is broken.
And, as an aside, friends and contacts aren’t specific to an application. Somebody forgot to tell that to the developers. If any are listening: I’d rather maintain my own contacts.
I understand the benefit of contact permission and viewing privileges. But the only party benefitting from the current approach of linking in-network profiles is the network. User accounts are inflated and terminations are depressed.
The idea of the friends list really only works as a scalable mechanism on extremely focused, niche networks or in cases where everyone you know participates in a single network. I just don’t happen to play in networks that fall into those categories.
With each new network I join, I’m giving less and less attention to friends lists. I’ve all but given up personalizing my profiles. I use folders in my RSS reader to catch friends’ streams coming in from Flickr, Twitter, Pownce, etc. rather than monitoring the sites themselves. And I’m far more intrigued by applications like jaiku that encourage users to aggregate their personal content streams than I am by applications like Facebook that continue to isolate.
I realize it’s FaceBook week and all, but until they kick down the walls or end up being the only social network on the internet, I put them in the broken category as well. Easily fixed. But broken.
9 Responses to “You’ve got friends!”
Of course you have messy social networks. Dude, your charisma is 18.
Reminds me of the difficulty articulated by a beloved American thinker, a man with a social magnetism not unlike your own, the esteemed Billy Squier: everybody wants you.
Seriously, what a great topic. Is it fair to say that what we think of as social networks are becoming social ghettos? Each walled off from the rest of the world, each slightly chaotic? Help me on this, ye of great charm: why is there an easy fix, as you mention?
Are social networks like watering holes in real life — you move from one to another, based on what’s hot?
Oh, they’re social ghettos alright. And don’t try to talk to the locals unless you live there.
The easy fix: don’t make me maintain multiple “profiles.” Let me create an account at each service but point to an actual profile (like my blog.). The idea that I need to create / maintain a 38th profile to participate in a conversation inside a new network is ridiculous.
The walls don’t need to be torn down. Just add a door or two.
Dan York blogs about this very concept regularly on his blog. He even has a category for it that he calls walled gardens. I share the same frustration. I’ve been avoiding Facebook forever because I dread the thought of signing up for one more social networking service. Only just yesterday, I finally gave up and signed in. They have an option where you can import your Outlook contacts, gmail addresses, AIM buddies and add them as contacts.
It seems like what’s needed is a central service where you can post all of your friends / contacts / buddies / etc. along with your profile and then pull them into each new social network (your contacts only if they’re members) you join. How does that sound for a killer ap?
I’m more than a little amused that the same people who chew on AOL will defend MySpace and Facebook as if they’ve been sent down.
I’m completely with your second paragraph. PeopleAggregator is pushing the ‘take it with you’ approach, but I’m not sure they’ve pulled off the implementation. It’s an app, it just isn’t killer.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of microapps. Social networks are typically dramatically over-engineered, and using facebook to get/stay connected just seems wrong. On the other side of the spectrum, I see Twitter just renamed friends to followers (Garrick pointed it out.) It’s a very small thing that goes a long way in my mind. Twitter is a microapp beginning to recognize that. It’s one of the reasons I dig them.
A final point, though: normal people don’t have 37 (now 38) profiles. I wonder if these issues even occur to offline-more-than-on types. Maybe it’s less of an issue if you participate in, say, one network. Maybe you don’t care if you can’t get your content out of the garden. These are things I just don’t know.
Aaron: You’re right about the “extremely focused, niche networks”. I’m waiting (patiently…) on ya’ll to provide me a line-item quote to build it. I respectfully ask that you not publish on your blog precisely what it is that I believe to be that exception! Please!
Jeff in Florida
No problem Jeff. We’ll leave it as “an exception.”
You have an invitation from COREY V. to join KillerApLOLCAT. Do you accept or decline this invitation?
Accept. I mean decline.
Welcome to KillerApLOLCAT!
Were in ur socialnetwork
Stealin’ ur frienz