And the answer is, you communicate. Private messaging, publishing and group discussion. These are exactly the areas that Facebook (and LinkdIn) is poor at. And these are the functions that a competitor can use to steal members.

What’s interesting is whether it’s possible to build rich function gadgets that actually answer this need on top of either the FB API or on top of OpenSocial. I’m not yet convinced that this is even possible.

This is why I still consider Google Groups and Yahoogroups to be more important than Facebook or MySpace. And why Twitter is more interesting than Plaxo. It’s not about collecting contacts. It’s about enabling new forms of communication.

Extending an app like ‘Where I’ve Been’ to LinkedIn could be situationally relevant and useful, but the idea that sheep throwing could be extended across LinkedIn or other non-situationally relevant SNS’s is a pretty ugly prospect.

I’m not sure if the details are available yet but I hope OpenSocial includes tools for participating SNS’s to control and manage what applications are accessible to their members.

– Tim

The problem SNS faces, as opposed to an office suite, is that the value comes from the network, as opposed to “technological” value. It’s arguably easier to create a SNS using OS tools than it is to build a new office suite. Furthermore, the office suite is “locked in” – structural forces such as format, familiarity and your boss’s expectations make it quite difficult to switch.

Switching cost in a SNS is the loss of your network. Theoretically, it’s a big cost, but once people have exhausted the site they’re on, its often refreshing. This is what makes ego-centric SNS unique – the experience is tied to identity that we’re open to change. Moving to a new SNS isn’t like adopting a new OS – its playing the game all over again, this time situating yourself in a more relevant (and cool) place than the service you joined 2 or 3 years ago.

What’s interesting is that for cascades to start, only a small percentage of the users have to go through that dialogue. Once a base gets well-seeded at a new site, they will encourage others to join. And as more join, social pressure and awareness mounts, to the point where it’s not even a “switch” so much as it is a normative behavior.

As a point of a comparison, consider a social-object-centric network such as Flickr. Its much harder to switch between photo-sharing sites because of the high switching costs in uploading, re-labeling, etc. To a certain extent, this susceptibility to fad is unique for ego-centric networks.

This doesn’t sit right with me because it hasn’t been true for other pieces of the applications layer in the stack that actually matter… so why is it true in this instance. For example, I’ve been using MS office products for 12+ years. I suspect the office suite will be disrupted by innovative technology in future, but it will not be a fad mentality that will lead to their eventual downfall; instead, it will be a substantial technology paradigm shift (such as persistently connected computers that tied to cloud applications and data storage)… Do you feel that social networking web services are essentially fads, and their popularity rises and falls independent of technological paradigm shifts?