More Social Networks?

So how many more social networks are going to be launched? Obviously social networks were a great option for marketers three years ago, but it doesn't make much sense for a brand like Target or Irish Spring to start a social network/online community.

Many big brains, like Bettina Bennett over at MRM International are already working to tackle this problem. The thing is, is it too little too late? Are we about to ride a wave of "me too" type social/online efforts? Or are there viable providers who could help us?

Lastly, is this an Identity 2.0 problem, or something more basic?

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Permalink Reply by Abdol Rahim Mirza on November 21, 2007 at 6:36am

Never mind Kevin, I know some peoples who have 10s of networks. The worst is that offers fake features like, we pay you for every post!

Riding the wave, there is so many sites that insist you to download their own Media Players.

Both above cases do not offer new services. Isn’t it a creation to give new name for an OLD game?

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Permalink Reply by shig on November 22, 2007 at 2:45pm

I think that it can certainly get confusing to us marketers to have so many social networks sprouting. However, I think that products that carry a lot of loyalty might be smart to create a forum where fellow loyal customers can interact with each other. I think someone has to really feel like that product is a part of their identity to want to use an associated social network. As an example, there is a ski resort that I go to every spring, and I've been pushing them to launch a social network with the main reason being that I want to interact with other people who go there.

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Permalink Reply by Samrat Das on November 23, 2007 at 6:29am

Copycats are everywhere. And so are me-too products.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Baum on November 23, 2007 at 8:35pm

I"m with sodani. As a user, I'm only interested in social networks that are about the people and subjects that are interesting to me, and to the extent that I would want to start one, it would be to reach a very limited audience.

Here on AdGabber, for instance, I have between ten and fifteen friends (mostly from Soflow) that I keep up with, and real difficulty deciding whether to accept friend requests from anyone I don't know -- or who isn't spending time with my original ten to fifteen friends.

I suppose I can understand why folks who didn't start MySpace and Facebook want to replicate those sites' success, and why the rest of us watching would have been looking for the Google initiative to launch a third meganetwork. But if the OpenSocial (it took me a minute to come up with the name there) project is about distributing content -- and of course advertising -- across millions of smaller networks, like this one on Ning, that makes a lot more sense.

In a way, I get the feeling it's also a little disappointing for the tech-watchers, who were maybe pushing a little too hard for Google to launch its own meganetwork -- maybe because that effort would have failed miserably, imho?

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Permalink Reply by bmassey on November 25, 2007 at 3:04pm

This is like asking "How many more Web sites?" in the 90s. Brochure sites are over. From now on, we're going to put up online networks. Blogs, profiles, forums, and "friending" are the services that sites can offer easily now, but they can offer other services as well.

These networks won't have to be large, just relevant to a certain group of people. It's great to have 1,000 people passionate about a particular kind of hard drive error correction technology, for example.

Your question should be: "More Social Networks betting on the Ad Model?" These are the ones that offer vanilla services and need millions of members.

Consumers and business people will be members of every network that offers more interaction on what they love or do for a living.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Baum on November 25, 2007 at 5:42pm

This sounds right. Certainly every site needs to have the social tools that drive revenue, plus a way to get feedback from customers -- or, to put my Maritz hat on, stakeholders. So that's probably product/service reviews and a blog from senior management at a minimum.

As Kevin pointed out, I don't think I need to add friends from the Target site -- even if I go nuts for Archer Farms frozen foods -- or even Amazon. Social tools don't necessarily imply the full social suite.

Until, or unless, they do -- and that's where the passion comes in, and why OpenSocial is smarter than a third plain-vanilla network on the ad model. Just as AdWords targets context on pages, OpenSocial can support these thousands of miniSpaces that are coming on, and target widgets to audience segments based on lifestyle interests, demographics and psychographics . . . and web behavior, of course . . .

Gee -- not too different from my late mentor, a DM guru who used to boost mail response by matching attributes from customer profiles to prospect lists.

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Permalink Reply by Dan d'Heilly on November 29, 2007 at 2:28pm

The web has always disconnected time and space to empower individual interests. Web 2.0 has given people motivation to fill in the blanks and now OpenSocial offers a sea change opportunity.

I agree that there will be many more Social Networking sites in the future - and successful ones with less than 1,000 members too. In fact, while I don't see much VC$ of the Facebook variety going forward, I suspect there are big investments in DB marketing TOOLS for aggregating social network information in due diligence now.

The niche marketing potential of OpenSocialprofiling is staggering! Are we finally approaching the promised land of of 1-to-1 mass market?! Perhaps...

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Glennon on November 28, 2007 at 4:55pm

My concern is who will want to belong to 30+ social networks when each requires unique usernames/passwords, etc.? I already belong to way more than I should (I've gotta know all the biggies in my business), and I'm constantly finding myself at a loss to remember login information (say, after a security cleaning of the computer when it wipes cookies).

Obviously we all know a great Identity 2.0 solution would solve all this, but realistically, even if a major (and secure) Identity 2.0 provider raises a hand in the game, most sites don't have the ability to plug into that service yet. Sure, the likes of Google will jump on it, but what about the smaller blog sites and communities that everyone is suggesting will take off?

For example, will the local "Ohio Fans of the Band U2" social network be able to afford, or even have the technical expertise to adopt, a new Identity 2.0 tool/provider?

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Permalink Reply by Mary Baum on November 28, 2007 at 5:10pm

I confess I do it the stupid way -- one or two logins for everything, then a couple completely different ones for the real stuff that I really don't let out. But aren't people less reckless than I am using at least Keychain, if not third-party password managers on their machines?

Or does it really take a server-side (i.e., labor- and capital-intensive), net-wide solution?

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Glennon on November 28, 2007 at 5:16pm

Keychain is Mac-only, and browsers like Firefox don't use it. There are many other options, yes, but not many users in terms of the global online market.

Also, even if you have an encrypted program on your machine, that doesn't control the many usernames you'll have to juggle. It gets confusing being KevinGlennon on one community, Kevin24 on another, kevin@kevinglennon.com on a third, etc. It would be convenient to always be Kevin Glennon no matter where I go. Much like I don't need a Player's Club card to shop at Target, a VISA to shop at Amazon, and a MasterCard to shop at Best Buy.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Baum on November 28, 2007 at 9:59pm

True enough about Keychain, and I never did like 1Password on Firefox, where my main concern was duplicating Safari 2's Autofill -- one Tab and it filled in a whole form. Now Safari 3 has stepped back from that to make autofilling just as big a pain as in Firefox.

But, yeah. Multiple identities in every network is just plain unworkable unless you're going to have a printed list taped to the bottom of a drawer -- and then you spill paper clips all over the floor every time someone pokes you in Facebook.

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Permalink Reply by bmassey on November 28, 2007 at 10:50pm

I don't think the number is 30. But even if we're on 10 networks, I really don't think the username/password issue is a problem, at least not for the coming generation. We all have ways to deal with it.

I think the cracks will show when authenticity starts to break down. It's hard to maintain the different personas we put on in each of our networks. Heaven forbid my LinkedIn friends should ever find my BeanieBabyBook page.