Posts Tagged: transitions

Research / Thoughts — 15 Comments
5
Nov 07

Social Network Transitions

In my last post on ego-centric social networks, I briefly discussed social network transitions – What’s next after Facebook, etc. I want to flesh this discussion out, and I want to highlight the particular outlying place of ego-centric social networks on the social web.

To generalize, let’s consider two types of social networks: ego-centric and object-centric. An ego-centric social network places the individual as the core of the network experience (Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster) while the object-centric network places a non-ego element at the center of the network. Examples of object-centric networks include Flickr (social object: photograph), Dopplr (social object: travel instance), del.icio.us (social object: hyperlink) and Digg (social object: news item). The characteristics of ego- and object-centric networks are similar, and a human can certainly be considered a social object, but I delineate based on the significant experiential difference.

In a post I wrote exploring the network effect multiplier, the value proposition of object-centric social networks is described. Object-centric social networks offer core value, which is multiplied by network value. A great photo-hosting service like Flickr stands alone without the network, making it less susceptible to migration. An ego-centic network, on the other hand, has limited core-value – it’s value is largely in the network – making it highly susceptible to migration. We see this with Myspace: individuals lose little in terms of affordances when they migrate from Myspace to Facebook, making the main chore of migration network-reestablishment, a chore made ever-simpler as the migration cascade continues.

Of course, the problem with ego-centric networks lies in the fact network-reestablishment is the main chore. Talk to individuals joining Facebook today – what are they doing? They’re using inbox importers and searching to find their friends/ex-classmates/etc. It’s a game, it’s fun for a bit, but then (say it with me readers) “What’s next?” Yes, the what’s next moment occurs. This is not to say the network becomes useless: no, it’s very useful rolodex, and the newsfeeds introduce concepts of peripheral participation (or social surveillance), but the game is in essence over.

Now, a note of caution. Because ego-centric networks suffer from these vulnerabilities, it does not mean that all networks suffer from these vulnerabilities. Simply because Facebook and Friendster and Myspace are enormous it does not mean they speak for object-centric networks. Do you leave Flickr once you’ve uploaded all your photos, migrating to Zoomr to relive the experience? Of course not – object-centric networks perpetuate: the network parts of these sites just help with the perpetuation. Amy Jo Kim has discussed these “game functions” of networks extensively. The Facebook’s are the outliers of social software in many senses: size, use-behavior and lifespan.

The genesis of this post is a Techcrunch entry that talks about Facebook competitors, stating “startups might be wise to try capturing the niche that Facebook has intentionally left behind.” The blog goes on to review a number of Facebook-clone websites. As I’ve been noting for the past few months, Facebook has neglected its core audience, sacrificing college students for a broader audience. Even with this neglect, are we really supposed to believe that college students are going to start looking for and adopting a Facebook clone? This is simply not how social network transition occurs. It’s not a 1 for 1 switch.

In her essay exploring the Frienster-Myspace transition, danah boyd points to the “cluster effects” of Myspace. While Friendster and Myspace were co-evolving, both sites had their own cliques; we heard more about Friendster, but both sites had found an audience of dense, small-world clusters. It was the technical and managerial failures of Frienster that catalyzed the change, but the Friendster-Myspace transition couldnt have occurred if Myspace hadn’t been significantly primed. Friendster ex-pats moved to Myspace with increasing intensity as the networks cascaded, leaving Friendster a virtual ghost town.

What about the Myspace-Facebook transition? For the past three years, Facebook has been building dense clusters among a powerful class of users: college students. These students have wide networks, influencing peers, family members and marketers alike. There’s a ton of reasons to leave Myspace: the site is spammy, the interaction is ridiculous, it’s developed a stigma – but what can we trace the cascade to? Unlike Friendster, which just fell apart, Myspace is no longer situationally relevant. Users have got all they can from the system, they’ve exhausted the game-like experience, and there’s a viable alternative. Tech journalists, longing for a new beat after years of following Myspace, provided the coup d’grace – but none of this would have happened if Facebook hadn’t had strong initial clusters.

In Gladwellian language, we need a “tipping point” to fuel the transition cascade, but a network must first be populated with dense clusters for the transition to occur. Why is this? Pretty simply, only about 2.5% of us want to be the first onto the dance floor (or have the skills to find the dance floor, to abuse the metaphor). Facebook developed its clusters by exploiting tightly-knit communities (college campuses). Legend has it that the Myspace founders drove up and down California exploiting the tight-knit car-tweaker communities. These clusters provided the seeds for network growth. In every case, it was less about the affordances and feature set, more about the network and connecting tight clusters.

Therefore, the idea of college students jumping ship from Facebook to an empty Facebook-clone is pretty ridiculous. No matter how many features, or whatever, these nets have – the features aren’t the motivating factor. So what will be the next big thing? It will be a situationally relevant social experience that exploits dense, underserved clusters, treating the ego-centric aspects as a sub-feature. I’m almost certain that the experience will be mobile based, incorporating geolocational data and personal beacons. We’ll still want a rich social experience, but this experience will be secondary to the core situationally relevant need answered by the site (be it positional data or otherwise).

Important to understand is that, in the context of individual value, network size does not trump network relevance. This is where Facebook is so instructuve. Yes, we care about everyone we know, but we care more about the people we see every day. In the words of social capital theorists, we’re more interested in bonding than bridging social capital. As the next networks will trade in hyper-personal data, success requires the creation of network-enforced boundaries. Using Facebook’s gimmick is uninspired, there will be better ways of doing this in the future.

The next transition, however, is a few years off. We’ve got another 1-2 more years of significant Facebook growth. I expect their network will top off around 250-300M members before the next phase transition occurs. This will make Facebook an extremely wealthy company if they can capitalize before the transition point. Unfortunately, since they are ego-centric, there’s no way to sustain this network in the long-haul. However, this 1-2 year lead time will give mobile devices significant time to improve; the iPhone and iPhone clones will be in the hands of hundreds of millions of youth, priming the market for the next phase transition.

As I’ve stated, Facebook and the ego-centric social networks are the outliers in social software. And while its tempting to be the outlier (look, Techcrunch says Facebook is the 5th most valuable internet company ever!), its an ultimately impossible proposition. Object-centric networks, however, offer unlimited potential. Look at del.icio.us – the site is built on the fact that we can have a social experience around a hyperlink – and you can imagine hundreds and thousands of other possibilities. Don’t mistake this as a call for niche social networks – they only work if they’re situationally relevant – but rather as a call towards bringing smart experiences to the social objects we value. There’s still tremendous potential out there.

Noticed / Research / Thoughts — 13 Comments
2
Jul 07

On Class and Social Network Transitions

Last week, danah boyd generated significant discussion with her piece Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace (comments here). After reading it this morning (I was offline last week), and then exploring some of the controversy surrounding the piece, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts.

In the essay, danah draws on her ongoing ethnography to explore class distinctions between Facebook and Myspace. Using frank language, she divides the representative “classes” of users – Facebook’s users are more systematically mainstream, whereas Myspace has become the catch-all for the second-class and minority cliques oft thought of as non-elite. As one might imagine, this argument created uproar, especially after it was grossly genericized in the press. While I think dichotomizing an audience as large as Facebook’s or Myspace’s is inherently problematic, danah’s essay was a meditation, meant to be thought-provoking and controversial.

danah’s work often draws the parallels between physical spaces and so-called “networked” or “digital” publics. As young people spend more of their lives interacting socially online, the expectations, norms and cultural baggage of our offline existences often show up in these online places. As a result, our online spaces become political and value-laden, and certainly the press and public-opinion treatment of Myspace is a prime exemplar.

How Myspace became a “scary” place is beyond the scope of this article; however, I’ve cataloged enough press clippings about social networks to clearly see an editorial slant. This is no surprise, as the “social networks as dangerous spaces” narrative has been a dominant theme for years now. But as we pull the layers back, I think danah brings up an interesting point for analysis – was Myspace easier to stigmatize because its userbase wasn’t the elite? Certainly, if we look at a Myspace/Facebook split in coverage, you’ll see differences in the volume and tone.

As we go down this path, one could argue that the systematic bias that pervades coverage of Myspace is a artifact of how the audience/userbase is generally covered; and if you buy danah’s characterization, this makes sense. I mean, when is the last time you read a positive mainstream press article about goths? And while I certainly don’t trust the press enough to throw away any of these possibilities, I think the larger effect we see in differences of coverage is due to access. That is, reporters/parents/schoolteachers have always had access to Myspace, whereas open access to Facebook is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Social networks as scary places is a media narrative that lasted longer than it should have. It played on parent’s worst fears (sexual exploitation) and turned teenage technical sophistication into a bad thing (i.e. savvy teens vs. clueless parents). I think the only reason the narrative is burning out is because the stories have been written so many times. Now, Facebook is emerging as an alternative – and it is being cast in the light of the “good alternative.” It is the anti-Myspace, which is a sentiment echoed up and down the food chain. Of course, in being the anti-Mypsace, we see a good/bad dichotomy between the two services. Those who use Facebook are good, advanced, self-respecting – while those who continue to populate Myspace – ouch.

As with anything boiled down into headline or paragraph, the nuance and complexity of the issue often overlooked. If Facebook is “good”, why doesn’t everyone just switch? And are those who don’t switch “bad” or second class? Of course not. I believe a good deal of this confusion can be explained by social network switching, or transition, costs.

If you’re reading my blog, it is likely you’ve heard of the network effect. In a nutshell, network effect means that as more people join a network, the network becomes more valuable. Imagine if you have 125 friends on Myspace, but you only know 10 people on Facebook; since you can get more social information from your 125 friends on Myspace, that network is much more valuable to you. Make no mistake, social network sites are social information hubs – the value of these hubs are directly related to the relevance of the network to the consumer. If you get more value out of your Myspace network, are you going to switch? Of course not – at least for now.

For the past three years, however, Facebook’s network has been growing amongst college and high-school students. Even though hundreds of thousands of people are joining Facebook each week, the strong ties and large networks in Facebook are generally populated by the students – they are the first-class network in Facebook, without a question. Because those who attend college can be grouped into secioeconomic classes, there’s certainly an effect for this self-selection. However, the reason one class can leave Myspace easier than the other is simply because switching costs are lower. If you’re of a “class” where many of your peers attend or have attended college, it is likely that you’ll have a rich network to join once you make the leap to Facebook. If you don’t, well – you’re a first adopter, and we know what that portion of the curve looks like. Does this mean that these “second-class” users can’t or won’t join – absolutely not – they will simply wait until Facebook’s network becomes valuable enough for them to join. In this sense, rational economic judgement (value of information networks) is keeping some users in situ, while others depart.

Of course, this analysis neglects a reality that some Facebook users do look down on Myspace (just as some Myspace users look down at Facebook). Are the Facebook users the kids with the new sneakers? Can we make this argument about digital publics? And perhaps having the social capital to be able to make the leap from Myspace to Facebook is a class statement. I think the problem here is that we’re overvaluing the tastemakers.

In 2004, students joined Facebook just because – not because it was the anti-Mypsace. Facebook grew from this point, and became the college social network. Yes – we consider this bloc to be the tastemakers (largely a function of their lifetime spending potential), but simply because they’re on Facebook – does that make it better? I think that’s the question we have to ask ourselves – because there are plenty of people who are perfectly happy on Myspace. Will the transition? Sure, I think transition is inevitable. Just as bars and restaurants go in and out of popularity, so will online social places. And just when those places become popular, the tastemakers will depart for new opportunities. But those who are left behind – do we need to worry about them? Honestly, I can’t really say – but my gut tells me they’ll fend for themselves just fine. There’s just too many parallels between this and everything else in life for me to believe that’s not the case.

Research / Thoughts — 8 Comments
31
Oct 06

Why They Are Leaving Myspace

A number of newspapers have taken up analysis of Myspace attrition – the growing meme that young people are leaving Myspace and other SNS. Here’s coverage by the Wall Street Journal, the San Fransisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. This coverage follows the recent Comscore and Nielsen surveys that “found” a growing number of SNS users are much older adults (“Even the audience for Xanga.com, a less-heralded online social networker, is stumbling toward middle age, with 20 percent of its population over 45.” breathlessly states the Chronicle.)

With all this coverage, you might find yourself wondering what exactly is going on with the SNS sites – are the populations aging upwards? Are young people committing SNS suicide en masse? Indeed, while these two questions seem strongly linked, they actually aren’t. Let’s analyze them separately.

First, with regards to the aging population of SNS, danah and I have conducted analysis that sheds a lot of light on those numbers. In a nutshell – while it is entirely possible that people from all age ranges are visiting SNS, the core user demographic absolutely still skews young. As SNS goes mainstream, of course a growing number of adults will check out the sites to see where their teenagers are hanging out – but these adults are not the users of the site, they are not making friends in the SNS. Unfortunately, a number of media outlets and blogs (The AP, GigaOM) erroneously reported on the data, so the meme that SNS is “graying” is unfortunately and erroneously in the wild.

More interesting, however, is the phenomenon of established users leaving SNS. The WSJ reported on Jenny Thompson, a MySpace native with 4,000 friends who deleted her profile. Indeed, SNS attrition is real, but it is hardly as alarming as the media makes it out to be? Why? Because social circles are fundamentally dynamic. Think back upon your life – how many social circles you’ve joined or left, the friends you’ve gained or lost over time. Our social networks are always in-flux, we are constantly joining and leaving social circles. An SNS is simply another one of these social circles – it is bound by the same rules as offline circles, so it is natural that individuals will join and leave.

In this analysis, there is a complicating factor. In the “real world”, our social networks are not publicly articulated. When we decide to stop attending our book groups, we do not suddenly dissapear from all of our other social groups. When we delete our Myspace profiles, we do remove ourselves from all of the in-system groups with which we affiliate. Because SNS suicide represents a shunning of all groups, we commonly overattribute value to this action.

Users in an SNS are primarily concerned with how the SNS helps them negotiate the primary contexts in which they wish to articulate their identity. In more human terms, while there are many secondary social networks in the SNS, we are largely concerned with the primary social network that is relevant to our lives. As situational relevance shows, this primary social network changes throughout our lives – and our needs change accordingly. Once a social networking site stops addressing those needs, it becomes less valuable to us, often to the point it becomes a burden. Then we leave.

They key point here is not that the social network sites are changing, but that we are changing. For people in different contexts, social networking sites serve very valuable purporses. The Facebook is invaluable to the young college student struggling to remake their identity and negotiate the world around him or her. Myspace is invaluable to the young relocated professional looking to find friends and dates. (Cliched exampes yes, but also true). However, as we age, our needs change – the college student solidifies his or her group of friends, the young professional settles down. Once the website stops serving our needs, we naturally leave.

The bar or pub provides a good analogy for the SNS. Bars are social places where we interact, meet and display our identity. Bars also have context – think of singles bars, music bars, wine bars. In these bars, there is a natural social evolution. For example, think of a singles bar. The people in the singles bar frequent it at a point in their lives; eventually, they meet a mate and the context becomes less valuable to them. Of course, the singles bar doesn’t go out of business – a new crop of singles replaces those old boring hitched folks. This is an important lesson for social networking sites – social places cannot be abstracted from their context, no matter how broad the appeal. Users will leave and move on – however, just like a good bar, they must constantly attract new clientele.

Indeed, the new clientele are coming. Young people are becoming technically socialized on SNS, and SNS serve valuable social needs. However, just as a bar would fail if it tried to be all things to all people, SNS sites must realize their value is dictated by their context. As such, they must consistently be thinking about new ways to bring audience in to this context, rather than just adding new additions designed to trap clientele that wishes to move on. That we wish to move from place to place is entirely natural, and generally technologists fail rather miserably when they try to break human nature for economic reasons.