Comments

1 - Christopher

Tue, Jun 21, 2005
@ 06:02

Molly’s observations on the handful of social networking tools you chose to examine are more or less on target. Without content (ie something for users to “get out of it”) or added value (ie. something that sets a Friendster or Orkut apart from typing an email or making a phone call) these online destinations are little more than fads. As a side note, I’m not entirely convinced that injecting her opinion that couples or people with enough friends need not bother themselves with signing up for these communities (”Plus, I already had a boyfriend, and I already had friends.”)– it does quite a bit to detract from the weight of her argument.

But what is really missing from the editorial is a look at how to make these social networks work– how to aggregate value. She’s right to point to the momentum that blogging has gained in this country. Emerging technologies in GPS and mobile communications are producing dizzying speculations in the tech world about mobile friendster’s and geoblogging in which you can pinpoint the location of your friends or exchange information without having to be seated in front of a computer. That, many people are beginning to realize, is the real potential for virtual networking to intersect with real-world social networks.

Someone with the resources that CNET must afford its writers and journalists should surely be able to dig up some good info and write an eye-openning piece on what is emerging…not what is on its way out.

2 - Ken Leebow

Tue, Jun 21, 2005
@ 06:37

Tell that to the college students at TheFaceBook.com. Almost every college student is @ that site.

3 - Christopher

Tue, Jun 21, 2005
@ 07:09

Ken’s right TheFaceBook.com is a really popular site, but I’d hazard the following guesses:

1) Most social networks on the site are intra-college, not inter-college. To be sure there must be plenty of users of the site who have friends at other schools, but proportionately those numbers are probably pretty small. In this sense, there doesn’t seem to be that much separating TheFaceBook from each college setting up its own on-line networking tool.

2) I’m also willing to bet that most people only use this site during the academic year…I’d bet that traffic around the site dwindles pretty heavily in the summer months and during December and Spring Breaks… that should tell you quite a bit about what the site is being used for.

To be clear, I’m not trying to detract from the importance of sites like this. Point of fact is I’ve signed up for them, used them a couple of times then, much like many other people, just lost interest and moved on to the next thing. I’m still convinced that without a meta-fabric holding these sites together, they wont be able to supplant other more focussed forms of networking. (By meta-fabric I mean some content or goal-specific material that the site is built around: Craigslist around classifieds, blogs and forums around their specific topics, etc.) Friendster and TheFaceBook don’t really have much of an identity themselves…

4 - mattias blog

Tue, Jun 21, 2005
@ 10:41

Five Reasons Social Networking Does Work

Saw on smartmobs that C|Net goes through and describes why they don’t believe in social networking, well I couldn’t let that one go by could I? Here’s my five counter-arguments why Social Networking does indeed work if done right

5 - Mattias Konradsson

Tue, Jun 21, 2005
@ 12:30

Well, that just shows that the most succesful social networking sites are probably the ones with tight connections and irl meetings. Social networking should extend irl activities, not supplant it

6 - shel

Tue, Jun 28, 2005
@ 10:25

Molly compares the blogosphere to social networking as though they were completely different phenomena. Blogging is a form of social networking. The medium just enables more personal expression than otherwise structured social networking environments. And apparently, the opportunity to pontificate draws people.

7 - Le blog-notes de Ben

Mon, Jul 4, 2005
@ 13:45

Smart Mobs: Five Reasons Social Networking Doesn’t Work

Ce billet sur Smartmobs me para√ìt poser des questions int√àressantes. Je dois conc√àder que la notion de social software me pose encore probl√ãme, mais c’est un peu p√àriph√àrique.

Surtout, cet article Èvoque un ensemble de questions que mon