Palopia, if nothing else, has done promotion right, earning a mention by Steve Rubel. Of the 100 or so Social Networking sites in existence, and the 1000 or so currently being incubated, the market is about to explode with a number of sites attempting to duplicate the success of MySpace and Facebook. To that extent, its a sexy proposition – the notion of being the next MySpace or Facebook – and the good news is, its certainly possible. Looking at Palopia, the strategy seems to be throwing features at the user; in my opinion, that’s not the winning strategy (primarily because its the strategy shared by 90% of the emerging social networks competition). So you wanna beat MySpace or Facebook? Here’s how you do it.
- Give up on the idea that you’re going to steal the eyeballs of MySpace’s audience with flash, professionalism, or better social networking. 98 percent of the people who use MySpace don’t realize they are using a social networking community. They are simply using a website that their friends are on – they are using it for the same reasons they use email or IM. The social networking aspects are practically moot – they are interested in the content (friends profiles) and goofing off. The SNC parts are completely secondary.
- A top-down play will only wash you out in the competition space. If you want to develop a social network, find a niche and exploit it. They key is you’ve got to find a niche that is situationally relevant. There are lots of people who want to explore social networks – people who have moved to new towns or neighborhoods, parents at schools, church patrons – they just don’t know it yet. And the key is to keep thinking about point 1 – people don’t really care about the SNC aspects, they just want a fun site where they can find their peer group.
- Be geolocal. Did you know there are a bunch of other Facebooks out there? And that in certain parts of the country, they are more popular than Facebook? Xuqa.com and Sconex each found relevant geolocals and created value (Sconex was purchased at the incredibly undervalued price of 6M). Sure, its not as sexy a proposition as being a national social network, but social networks aren’t national. They are local.
- Investing in better technology, sexier UI’s, more professional templates, etc. is not enough. Look at MySpace, which is one of the clunkiest experiences on the net. People will tolerate clunky user interfaces because they are used to them. Those 68 million people don’t care about Web 2.0, AJAX and XHTML. They are used to clunky webforms, slow connections and poorly designed HTML. MySpace wins by not shooting over their heads. Facebook, on the other hand, is simple, clean and understated. And the best part is it’s fast, and people love Facebook for that. Your sysadmin should be the highest paid person on your technical staff.
- Exploit a content area. Basically, find some content that people love and wrap a social network around it. This is a little tricky because it flips the notion of social networking on its head, however, this might be one of the easiest successes to pull off. There are lots of content areas on the net that are served poorly by old websites. Think about any community of practice, the endless forums and listservs on the net. A lot of these people could be better served by websites designed with their interest in mind. You build a website they like, wrap a lightweight social network around it, and you might have a winning proposition.
The emerging social networking sites will not succeed by chance; the notion of build it and they’ll come will fail miserably. The new social network winners will win because they have done their research, completely understand the market, and they’ve made a relevant play. MySpace and Facebook are closely researching the failings of past social networks, and investing heavily in the gut instincts that made their products winners. Waiting on them to stumble is not a business proposition.
It is key to remember that a horde of young people now understand the social network model of websites. This is why I scoff when people say that social network websites are a fad. Sure, people might become uncomfortable with information disclosure, but the young audience is now native with the underlying model. It isn’t going to go away. However, social networking will be commoditized as more and more sites integrate aspects. There may be a few more big social networks waiting to emerge, but I think these will be few and far between. Facebook started out with a niche, and they grew nationally.
Beating MySpace or Facebook is a tough proposition. They’ve got a head start, they have great employees, and they’ve managed growth successfully so far (three absolutely key business facets). What’s more, they have extremely passionate userbases, and they seem to understand their users. Beating them is not like beating Google, but as each day passes that gets a little bit closer to a reality. Will there be a bubble in social networks? Of course – because hundreds of extremely similar ideas will be funded, and the market can’t support this. Without question, though, social networks are here to stay; it will just take some genuinely creative thought to create value in the space.
