The SNS Differentiation Challenge
Yesterday, I mentioned the ICQ Universe and at least one user’s perception that the Universe was not the most appropriate location for conduction business networking. This assessment led to many questions as to what makes one SNS better for a certain social context versus another as well as why most SNS seem to be single-minded in design.
To understand where SNS 2.0 will be positioned and how it will grow from SNS 1.0, it’s important to consider several key factors:
- Current state of SNS 1.0
- Forces behind SNS 1.0
- Experience's role in differentiation
- Growing importance of social context
SNS Taxonomy
As we've seen over the last year or so, a wide array of online social networks have arisen from seemingly nowhere. It seems that we have a specialized network ready to cater to each and every segment of our lifestyles. So far, I've seen systems that cater to each of the following:- Dating Networks (Match.com, LavaLife)
- Friendship Networks (Friendster, Orkut, etc.)
- Business Networks
- Professional Networks (ZeroDegrees, Spoke)
- Event Networks (Ryze, NetParty)
- Commerce Networks (Tribe.net)
- Special Interest Networks
- Roommates (Roomster.net)
- Pets (Dogster, Catster)
One thing remains clear, they all CAN’T survive and consolidation is inevitable. I’m going to skip any attempt to explain the financial motivations for this upcoming aggregation, but I do think that the user perspective is particularly telling. The most influential source of change, and eventually consolidation, will be users’ attitudes towards the various SNS applications. In a widely public race, the SNS with the most USABLE features will come to rule, not necessarily the one with the “best”.
Inside the Beast: Specialization vs. Adaptability
In all fairness to SNS 1.0, when the push into this uncharted territory began, as does the push into any unknown space, serious choices were made early on and some assumptions and compromises were inevitable. This holds true on both the business front as well as on the development one.From the business side, there is always the “first-mover itch” that needs to be scratched. When a company is loaded with a great idea, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage the excitement and sense of pressure internally. Employees work long hours and pour their collective talents to build something truly unique. The reward for that sacrifice may be financial in the form of equity, options, or cold hard cash. Others seek the social acclaim that comes with association with a firm that is “going places”. Most often, it’s a combination of the two. In addition, the initial investors and entrepreneurs that bootstrapped the operation are facing market and investor pressures to take something live fast.
From the development side, not knowing the end game can work for and against you. When the scope is small and focused, the development process skips along at a happy pace. Of course, potential problems exist as applications are always hard to future-proof and quick, dirty ones are almost impossible to get right in that first pass. The flip side of this coin is a long, detailed development process. Naturally, maximizing the time to plan can often be detrimental to the business needs (see above).
SNS 1.0 did not insight to the challenges and complications that have evolved since their inception. Additionally, systems that are designed with great flexibility the aforementioned costs of complexity and latency. Considering the initial vantage point, it’s hard to see why the task was so difficult.
Experience Yields Extermination
There are thousands of potential reasons that users will be attracted to one SNS over another, however, I am confident that the battle will be fought largely over social context and the ability to manage them. As anyone can relate, our world is built of a series of often-interlocking social circles and contexts. Within each of these contexts, we carry different identities and personalities that facilitate our role and participation in that context.The pattern of specialization that we see with the current crop of SNS survives largely because there are no patterns for comparison yet. When Friendster launched and took the world by storm, people familiar with the “6-Degrees” concept jumped onboard and quickly recruited their friends, acquaintances, and associates. The growth of Friendster led to the outgrowth of many other “-sters”. Each successive -ster borrowed heavily from the Friendster model, sometimes even stealing the identity.
With choice comes evaluation and comparison. With experience comes knowledge. Both of these forces are working against the current crop of SNS applications. It is, purely from an economic point of view, simpler to build bigger and better when someone has done the research, development, testing, and education. Programmatically, its often easier to write new code while refactoring existing code than to mend an existing infrastructure. With users more informed, their ability to discern the good from the bad grows.
The new vantage point time and experience provides users will be reason enough for unrest and defection.
Social Context Continuum
SNS 1.0 is at risk from another powerful force, however. Although the feature sets of these tools will often fail to accommodate user's needs, a far more fundamental problem may exist in the very foundations. As mentioned we all interact within different social zones and contexts. As mentioned, our circles are interconnected and often linear (although promotions and demotions can be accelerated for any arbitrary reason). I call this the Social Context Continuum. Relationships evolve, or devolve, over time. As more information is exchanged, the bonds change based on a number of criterion -- trust being near the top of that list.The dilemma is two-fold. One the one hand, there are not enough “shades” for tinting relationships in the current systems. Degree-based systems are meaningful only in term of understanding graphs. However, they do nothing to indicate affinity or opportunity. Graduated scales, going from Enemy to Friend only serve to collapse the value of categories as a whole — much like the junk drawer in most everyone’s kitchen which becomes a convenient catch-all for hard to place items.
On the other hand, the positioning of SNS is problematic to its long-term unevolved survival. For some users, SNS provides a unique social environment that encourages and develops new relationships. For others, the potential of SNS to create business opportunities provides significant value. Unfortunately, the quest for ubiquity at the same level as e-mail or cell phone address books is extremely difficult to pass, at least by current standards.
In the end, these two forces will come together and result in a growing sense of frustration for users. This frustration will stem from the inability to manage more of their network from a single location. The result will be that users will be forced to maintain identities in numerous locations without the ability to easily leverage previously efforts. Some may argue this will prove to be a much smaller problem than it seems, however, we live in a culture of consolidation and where time and other pressures continuously drive us towards new forms of “efficiency”.
These pressures could quickly prove to be enough to force SNS to adapt or die. Adaptation may take the form of technology licensing that bolts on functionality or the merger of these separate forces to complete the user experience. Either scenario has the option to be very ugly.