Here is a report on Scoble’s keynote presentation at The NextWeb Conference. Robert Scoble talked about the user experience of social networks. The following is registered by Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief of The Next Web Blog.

“In the beginning of the nineties, everybody had the same experience on every computer. The digital divide back then was that some people had a computer and some didn’t.”

“But when ICQ was launched, the experiences of people started to diverge. ICQ users with a hundred friends had a different experience than those with only two. With the new web, version 2.0, this diversion becomes more significant. Scoble proved this by showing versions of Google Reader, Twitter, Pownce, Friendfeed and Upcoming, one version with only one friend and the other one with Scoble’s famous collection of friends. 1000+ on Google Reader, 500 people on Upcoming, 3000 Powncers and over 17,000 Twitter contacts. So we got to witness two extremes here, one with no activity and the other version that was flooded by updates. Those are totally different user experiences, the consequence is the friend divide.

When ‘normal people’ decide to sign up on a service, they enter a pretty lame environment since there are no friends. Or as Scoble puts it: “The first experience is a real crappy experience, since there’s no input. And it’s all about input from other users”. According to Scoble, social networks should work on improving this first experience. One network that tried this a bit was MySpace, as they introduced you to Tom. But they can do better, says Scoble. For example, if a construction worker signs up, why not introducing him to a group of construction people? He could meet an architect and find relevant construction info through him. The same goes for techies, why not immediately hand them a contact list of established tech bloggers?”