Posts Tagged: situational relevance

Research / Thoughts — 6 Comments
2
Nov 07

Google OpenSocial and Situational Relevance

Google’s OpenSocial has launched. You can read about it at the Google blog or the Google OpenSocial blog. You can also watch the “CampFire”, the pseudo-folksy release event that looks as if it was organized by Dubya’s press handlers. However, you’re probably sick of reading about OpenSocial, and as it is actually a pretty simple concept, you’re likely also sick of reading the same thing over and over. I’ll see what I can do to put an interesting spin on things.

Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about networks, Open Social and the problems open social can and can’t solve. I’m going to use the “situational relevance” frame, as it is particularly useful for this analysis.

First, let’s define the problem: Facebook is winning the social network wars. Even though Myspace has a trillion users, it is passe and Facebook is the new thing. As more people join Facebook, switching costs get lower, leading to a cascade effect. In terms of the diffusion of innovations curve, Facebook is now being heavily adopted by the “Early Majority”, indicating they’ve got a good one or two years left of substantial growth. In Google’s eyes, this is a major problem because it can’t really afford to “lose” at social networks for the next two years.

The OpenSocial value proposition goes something like this: Adopt opensocial, push your data into more places, and everyone wins. Consumers get their information needs answered in more places, and companies get their footprint in more places. And more or less, I agree – more relevant social services in more places is a win, but not in the Facebook-killing way Techcrunch expects.

Ego-centric social network sites all suffer from the “what’s next” problem. You log in, you find your friends, you connect, and then…what? Social networks solve this problem by being situationally relevant. On a college campus, where student real-world social networks are in unprecedented flux, Facebook is a social utility; the sheer amount of social information a student needs to manage as they mature their social networks makes Facebook invaluable. For the consultant or job seeker, LinkedIn maintains situational relevance by allowing one to activate weak ties in periods of need.

What happens when a social network is no longer situationally relevant? Use drops off. Social networks can combat this problem on a number of levels. Myspace dumped tons of exclusive media content into the site, so users would keep coming back once they negotiated their social networks. For non-SR users, Facebook developed the application platfom, betting that third party developers could make tools that would answer the varied needs of their userbase. Unfortunately, the gimmicky nature of the platform tools has undercut this approach somewhat, but this could very well change over time.

Try as they might, once ego-centric social networks lose situational relevance, its pretty much impossible for them to retain their status. Myspace users have exhausted the Myspace experience; they’ve done all they can do, they’ve found all the people they can find, so now its time to find a new context. We naturally migrate – we don’t hang out in the same bar or restaurant forever, so why would we assume behavior would be any different online?

Here’s where I get to my point: It’s all about networks. The coolest tools, the best exclusive media – these are only “fingers in the dam” to keep users in non-situationally relevant spaces. Networks naturally migrate from place to place – slowly at first, followed by a cascade as switching coss decrease – and no tools or content or affordances can really stop that.

OpenSocial, in essence, is a set of fingers to plug holes in the dam. It is a set of patches designed to keep users locked in to non-situationally relevant sites. Is it surprising that Myspace has signed on? Or any of the other secondary social networks? No. By injecting third-party content into sites, more needs will theoretically be answered, and users will be less likely to switch out. Unfortunately, this is not reality.

Ego-centric social networks are interesting because they can’t really compete with one another. Can you design a site that will steal Facebook’s core users? No. And is Facebook successful because it stole Myspace’s core users? No. A social network site must catch on with an unserved, influential demographic. In Facebook’s case, the demographic was college students who largely didn’t use Myspace and had never used Friendster or anything before that. Facebook found an unserved audience and accidentally became a giant. The next giant in the ego-centric space will do the same. Importantly, its not about the coolest features or the best content or cloning Facebook – it is about finding that unserved network.

Getting back to “its all about networks,” where OpenSocial fails is the proposition that by spreading content throughout the web, we’ll no longer want to cluster. That if Myspace or Bebo have just enough third-party widgets, Facebook will no longer matter. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We will naturally cluster in spaces, and companies are going to keep fighting tooth and nail to be the spaces where we cluster. The only way Google can win at ego-centric social networks is by creating one; but just as in real life, our social spaces are generally designed by people that “get us” – not the largest, most powerful company.

To put it bluntly, OpenSocial isn’t an anything “killer.” And OpenSocial isn’t going to save Myspace. What OpenSocial will do is add a layer of richness to applications, assuming that we don’t see another race-to-the-bottom like we saw over at Facebook (How long will it be before you can throw a sheep at your boss in LinkedIn?). Intelligent, well-curated third party apps will make sites better, but Google can’t really take credit for that. Ultimately, OpenSocial will not significantly impact Facebook and other “central” (in the network sense) sites, other than forcing the “media dialogue” ball into their court. And as Erick Schoenfeld (a voice of clarity on Techcrunch) puts it, Facebook could just adopt and snuff Google’s attempts to drive this media wedge. But frankly, it doesn’t really matter. No matter what Google does, Facebook is going to succesfully ride Roger’s S-Curve for the next couple years.

After that? Another thing will be popular, and it won’t be Facebook and I guarantee it won’t be Google. But it could be you. :)

Noticed / Thoughts — 3 Comments
31
Aug 07

Facebook’s next big change?

Via Alla, I’ve come across some posts discussing the introduction of “social zones” into Facebook. Justin Smith of InsideFacebook (an invaluable resource for following FB, if you ask me) covers it as such:

I just received a tip from top application developer Trey Philips that Facebook has added two new undocumented functions to its API Test Console this evening that appear to reference an as-yet-unreleased feature called “Friend Lists.”

The two new API methods are:

  • friends.getLists
  • friends.getListsMembers

Based on these method names, “Friend Lists” could be buddy lists that you might use to organize your friends. For example, “Work Friends” or, say… “Top Friends”.

Justin reads the tea leaves and decides that FB is going to compete into Myspace and Slide’s territory by adding “top eight” type applications. Well, I like to read into the tea leaves too, so here’s my completely un-informed, un-leaked and speculative guess: I think Facebook is going to allow us to roll our own networks.

By allowing users to create their own networks (say a network for your church, or family, or non-FB-approved place of work), FB would introduce an important, situationally relevant social vector that they’ve long underserved. Let’s face it – we don’t really organize purely at the regional, school or employer level; there’s a great bit more nuance in the way we come together. By allowing us to create our own networks, we develop a way to cut across Facebook without substantially disturbing the ecosystem.

Of course, FB would have to institute some controls to prevent negative outcomes. They’d probably limit how many networks you can join, how many people can join a roll-your-own network, and introduce some new privacy controls. In doing this, FB would compete directly into Ning’s territory, as well as giving tens of millions of other people a new reason to join. Seeing as FB is so devoted to the 35+ demographic, you can just imagine parents saying “I can join Facebook but only be part of my Family’s network? Sounds great!” And to this extent, as FB’s mission is to connect people to other people they know, this would clearly be within scope.

Of course, it’s all speculation….

Thoughts — 12 Comments
15
Aug 07

Newsweek and more sneaker metaphors

This week’s Newsweek features a cover story exploring the growth of Facebook. Following up his thoughtful piece on the class divide, I thought Steven Levy did a great job with the story. In the article I talk a little about how Facebook’s attempt to reinvent itself is changing the nature of the service; I’ve previously fleshed these thoughts out in a blog post entitled “Where are Facebook’s Early Adopters Going”.

As the Fall semester starts up anew, Facebook’s efforts to distance themselves from the college market grow more clear. Facebook has decided to drop support for classes, meaning that college students will now have to use a substandard third-party application if they want to see their fellow classmates. On a college campus, the browsing of classmates via “classes” was a core “information vector”, and many loved the feature as they learned more about the people sitting next to them. Now that this feature has been summarily executed, students will reap less informational value from Facebook. Granted, it’s a small change, but an important change; while the site clearly wants to distance itself from its core audience, I fail to see why they feel the need to penalize students.

Facebook’s attitude towards college students might be best summed up in this quote from the Newsweek article – it’s a spin job that would make Karl Rove proud: “Facebook did not change college life, but it changed the lives of the early adopters … many of whom were in college.” (Former COO Owen Van Natta). Yow. And as Facebook focuses its efforts on shutting out its core audience and appeasing the blogosphere, am I the only one left shaking his head and wondering? I get that Facebook wants an older audience, but it’s not like you see Nike leaving the basketball shoe market to compete with Florsheim.

Thoughts — 3 Comments
22
May 07

Activating Latent Ties

There are a number of models that enable the integration of social technology into our everyday lives. In the context of online social networks, we’ve often talked about situational relevance. Here’s the basic principle of situational relevance: When a person is entering a new social network, they have information needs. They need to know about the people around them in order to navigate the social network. An online social network that addresses these needs is situationally relevant.

While I certainly agree that people use social technologies for entertainment/time wasting, a huge part of the calculation is also utility. Why did Facebook have such extensive success with college populations? Because it answered relevant social needs. Why do we choose Google over other search engines? Because it is best at answering our information needs. Ultimately, our relationship with information tools is structured around “what does it do for me.” The tools that best and most frequently answer our questions are often the most popular.

Today I’d like to discuss another model, one that certainly isn’t new but is well worth discussing. In a post yesterday, I talked about the power of latent social ties. Latent social ties are pre-existing social ties that we’ve deactivated or left behind. As we move through the various social networks of our lives, we develop friendships and ties that we ultimately have to backshelf as we move forward. These are our school friends, ex-coworkers, friends from previous neighborhoods, that sort of thing. No rocket science here.

Many of us would like to have a low-involvement context to get back in touch with these individuals. And there’s a plethora of reasons – potential business contacts and networking, catching up, reuniting, etc. Right now, we do this through email, though email is a particularly bad medium for these connections. Yes, it might be fun to write a long-lost bud a huge email filling him in on the details of your life to date, but you’re not going to do this every day. Rather, you’re going to want to keep them in an address book of sorts…one where you can pop in and check out what is new with your old friend’s life.

As one might imagine, online social networks are particularly well suited for this task. The low-involvement, low-effort model of friend maintenance is pretty much what the environment is built for. It’s also a useful way to keep people engaged when they arent exploring new, situationally relevant new networks. If you’ve been at your job or college for a few years, the value of situational relevance declines somewhat, so what can a social network do to keep you engaged? They can certainly get you activating latent ties.

Of course, activating latent ties is somewhat tricky. My undergrad classmates largely aren’t on FB, and that reality is even moreso for those who graduated in the 90’s, 80’s and so on. So how can you create an environment to activate these latent ties? As a list:

  • The environment must be “accessible” (or comfortable, or usable, or whatever you want to call it). Facebook is particularly well suited for this role, with their emphasis on clean design and usability. Further, it must be easy for users to get on the systems and find their old ties.
  • Contexts must be respected. One of the main reasons that we feel uncomfortable about the mixing of social networks is the fact we’re different things to different people. While Facebook doesn’t really foster faceted identity, we can keep our social networks separate, which is a very important facet. It is up to us to provide a palatable identity, but if we can keep our social networks separate, that’s almost as valuable.
  • The activation of ties must be fostered. It isn’t an accident that people go to Classmates.com to connect with ex-classmates. The site is set up with the premise of rediscovering old ties. While I think Classmates.com is hopelessly broken, the point is valuable – the activation of latent ties doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because people enter the social network with the intention of doing so, and they have the tools for doing so. Therefore, social networks must put effort into this approach – they have to foster the activation of latent ties.

While the answering of situationally relevant social information needs provide motivation for using online social networks, if that is all the user does, they will run into the “what’s next” problem. The activation of latent ties may stem this problem; and when you think about all of the potential latent ties we’ve left behind, you see the potential scope of the market.

Just like situational relevance, the activation of latent ties is something that must be done correctly. It is a unique information transaction and must be treated as such. The online social network that best understands the complications involved in this transaction, and designs appropriately towards these complexities will reap huge rewards from the latent ties market. Of course, I write this with Facebook in mind, as they are the network best situated to benefit from this opportunity. If my Facebook can become the low maintenance, low involvement directory of our lives, it is going to stand alone as a useful information tool. And usefulness, folks, is what its all about.

Thoughts — 2 Comments
17
Jul 06

Situational Relevance and Facebook’s Summer Traffic

A week or two ago, Comscore Media Metrix reported its new internet audience numbers. Fred Wilson covered the rankings, and created a nifty graph that compared the rank of a few social sites, Facebook amongst them (addt’l coverage from Read/Write Web, Silicon Beat, Jeff Clavier). For all the hype about Facebook, it was interesting to see that the traffic for the past few months was largely flat.

Today, Stowe Boyd covered some of my recent Facebook research and came to pretty much the same conclusion that I did – things are looking very good for the Facebook. UNC’s freshman Facebook adopters are signing on at better rate than last year, they’ve got many more friends in many more networks than last year. Since last year saw adoption top out a 94-95 percent (something I consider to be a virtual 100% adoption) – the Facebook appears to be on a course to hit these goals amongst their core audience even earlier this year than last.

I found this situation to be quite interesting. On one hand, we have proof of a rapidly growing Facebook – but on the other, we’ve got numbers showing a stagnant Facebook. As it turns out, both numbers are correct – and they stand to tell us a good deal about situational relevance.

Situational relevance is a fancy-sounding word I’ve used to describe how information needs drive use of a service like the Facebook. Simply, a student’s social information need is to understand the campus social world around them. As the Facebook is a frighteningly thorough guide to the social world around them, students find it to be a useful resource in learning about and exploring the social world they are trying to master; it answers their situationally relevant information need.

Of course, the information needs of students change over the summer. Their social orientation changes from the expansion of the social network (i.e., meeting lots of new people in class, at parties and researching them) to the management of the social network (keeping up with friends over the summer). As students aren’t aggressively expanding their social networks over the summer, the Facebook becomes less situationally relevant. In fact, over the summer, the Facebook isn’t all that situationally relevant – explaining the contraction of growth shown in Wilson’s graph.

You may wonder – the contraction of growth is a downturn in a sense, but if the Facebook’s key play was only situational relevance, wouldn’t the downturn be more profound? In a word: yes. There are two key factors (amongst a few others) driving summertime traffic. First and foremost, the Facebook has done a good job diversifying its networks. Through the addition of high school and work networks, the population of the Facebook is diversified as to soften the blow of the summertime slump. Without work and high school networks, the downturn would be profound. Second, there is an audience that has a situationally relevant need in the summer – incoming freshmen. These freshmen (1/4 of Facebook’s college population, and easily 1/3 of Facebook’s college traffic) are using the Facebook to explore the new world around them. In my study of the 2006 UNC freshmen, I saw higher rates of adoption, vastly higher numbers of friends per freshmen, and more heterogeneity in network participation by freshmen.

These two reasons, coupled with viral use of the Facebook by summering users (the Facebook is still used heavily to keep in touch, look at friends’ new pictures, track birthdays) explain why Facebook’s expected summer traffic dip is a plateau instead. Information needs drive adoption and use, but the needs don’t disappear during the summer. Facebook answers a lot of these needs with product offerings; of course, the information needs aren’t as strong, but the increased diversity of the networks and freshman adoption help pick up the slack. If my analysis holds, we should see traffic growth come back in the Fall, starting in mid-August as students return to campus and start making new connections, expanding their social networks and operationalizing their information needs.

In other news, I was quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about college athletic departments and their relationship with the Facebook. This follows on a USA Today article in which I was quoted about a similar topic. All hand-waving aside, I certainly look forward to friending Wayne Ellington, Tywon Lawson, Brendan Wright, Alex Stepheson and Deon Thompson ;)

Thoughts — 4 Comments
17
May 06

Facebook’s Critical Success Factors

In the May 15 issue of the New Yorker, Facebook is profiled in a ten page article that features some insightful commentary by founder Mark Zuckerberg. Unfortunately, the article is not online – for those of us who spend too much time thinking about this stuff, it’s a good read and worth tracking down. A bit of the article deals with how Facebook got off the ground – how the site was developed and rolled out, eventually becoming one of the most visited sites on the internet. A big part of Facebook’s success was being in the right place at the right time, though as the article points out, Facebook had a number of competitors – they weren’t simply handed the keys to the castle. In preparation for a talk I’m giving this Friday, I figured it would be interesting to sit down and think about Facebook’s critical success factors. Zuckerberg rightly acknowledges that “gating” the networks was a huge factor in long-term success – but what were the things that brought in that initial audience and kept them coming back? Here’s my take on Facebook’s critical success factors, in a convenient list form.

  1. There was a huge market. Until that time, Social Networking Services (SNS) had largely been targeted and adopted by an older demographic. Friendster was largely popular with twentysomethings, not high school students. Whatsmore, in 2004, Friendster was on its downturn from the market, and Myspace was not the phenomenon it was today (in Summer 2005, a study I piloted found ~5% penetration from Myspace on campus). In 2004, a lot of us felt burned and a little jaded by SNS due to our Friendster experiences, but there was a whole enormous youth market segment that hadn’t had that experience, and Facebook captured it.
  2. The Experience was designed for college students, by college students. I’ll talk a little more about key features later on – but the fact this site was designed by members of the demographic it served is huge. The youth perspective informs every facet of the site; Zuckerberg’s decisions weren’t screened by a 27 year old product manager. In my last job, I managed extremely bright, extremely technical students for five years. These students taught me many things – including the need to keep my hands off of projects that motivated the students. Had Zuckerberg been answering to a 30 year old manager, or a 45 year old CEO, the site would have been different.
  3. Privacy. Beyond the market segment and the experiential aspects of the site, the fact Facebook walled networks was its most critical component. That the students could create their profiles for their audience (other students on their campus), and for their audience only created trust in the site. It also created behavior that made the site viral – students were incentivized to create profiles for each other, rather than for the world at large. As Zuckerberg notes in the New Yorker article, the privacy is largely false – but for most students, the privacy is good enough.
  4. Socioeconomic motives. People commonly cite the fact that Facebook was started at Harvard as a factor in its success – that these ivy league students proved tastemakers for the rest of the country. Sure, this may have been a slight motive very early in the rollout process, but I do not believe it is a critical factor. However, there are critical socioeconomic factors tied in to the Facebook. First, the class of student who uses the Facebook is a unique subset of the youth market. That is to say, they are the privileged class of youths who can attend a four-year college. The Facebook represented a place where they and their like friends could be found; I’m sure I can dig a study up where it shows that high school students of like socioeconomic and educational status cluster together. The Facebook allowed these like clusters to be transplanted virtually, into a members-only place. Compared to a Myspace or Friendster, where you’re forced into the pile with everyone else, this made the initial adoption of a SNS much easier for members of this socioeconomic class. As Facebook radiated outward, taking on colleges further down in US News rankings, it was a class effect that elevated the perceived status of membership, one that continues today.
  5. Features, and the Experience. That the Facebook was designed for students by students merited its own bullet on this list. However, there are a number of features Facebook incorporated that made the service sticky. Here are the most important
    • Feature – Organization by Classes. The Facebook allowed people to list their class schedules online, making them browsable. That is, if you’re in English 101, Section 9, you can browse all the other profiles of students in English 101, Section 9, as you sit in English 101, Section 9. Think about how powerful this is. The kid sitting next to you who you never talk to? You know his favorite bands, his interests, you’ve browsed his friends and realized you actually have friends in common. This was an incredibly important part of Facebook’s early success.
    • Feature – The Poke, or low-involvement communication. In Facebook, you can poke people. It means nothing and everything. There’s no documentation for the feature, but the students got it. The poke is a way to simply place yourself on someone else radar, and it quickly became culturally appropriate to poke. The poke is the precursor to full-duplex communication; for students trying to figure out who its OK to talk to and not, the poke is a low-involvement way to test these waters. Low-involvement communication is a key factor of Facebook, and it really makes sense in a situation where communication barriers are still being figured out.
    • Feature – Groups. Groups are a way to say everything or nothing about yourself. They’re a fun way to come together to represent part of your identity. Mostly, though, they just gave students another fun thing to browse endlessly – and you were rewarded for your wit (most group names are in-jokes).
    • Experience – Directory Services. The Facebook is a directory. As it turns out, students need that directory to figure out how to contact each other. The directory provided by their school? Not so good. A directory like Facebook? Invaluable.
    • Experience – Simplicity. The Facebook is a simple website. It uses common design features, uses text links for feature navigation, and the site is largely unobtrusive. This means that students could learn it fast. The site isn’t full of Ajax, there aren’t overly complicated functions, and the Facebook doesn’t try to design above anyone’s head.
    • Experience – Speed. Those of us who suffered through Friendster, and loathe browsing MySpace on Firefox know how important speed is. The Facebook has always been lightning fast – and that has helped their brand immensely. Lets face it, when we browse a social network we want to move around frequently and rapidly. We’re stumbling, not following an explicit path. Fast response enables this fun stumbling process, and the fact that Facebook has stayed consistently fast has left a very positive impression in users minds. Anyone working in the SNS space should keenly try to replicate Facebook’s successes in this area.

A couple of things to keep in mind. In making this list, I approached the question from a past perspective. I wanted to explore what worked for Facebook in 2004/2005 – factors that contribute to their success today. There’s no doubt that I’ve missed things, or that people have different opinions. Please leave a comment if you do. Readers should also note that Facebook hasn’t done everything perfectly – they’ve made mistakes like any other business. I’m just concentrating on their success factors, because I think it might be useful for those of us in the SNS space to think about. Again, feedback is welcome.

Thoughts — 14 Comments
25
Apr 06

Transience in Social Networks, or How to Beat MySpace and Facebook

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

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