5 reasons why social networks fail
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I was recently invited by Jason Calacanis to A Small World, the uber-exclusive social network (don’t ask for invitations, it’s a privilege I haven’t been granted since I’m a newcomer there). This has prompted me to think about a number of issues relating to social networks in general. In this entry, I will try to look at why social networks fail. Subsequent entries will focus on why they succeed and what opportunities they create.Â
So without further ado, here are five reasons why social networks fail:Â
5. Privacy concernsÂ
The first reason I would highlight, and part of the reason why social networks have not really gained much traction outside of a self-selected group of people is the amount of privacy concerns that exist within certain age groups. Younger people are generally more immune to those but older people tend to worry about what the social networks in question do with their data and are worried that they will either be data mined or that they will suffer from identity theft. This anxiety has largely been driven by media emphasis on how your data on the Internet is unsafe and how there are “nefarious characters” running around the net.Â
4. No real reward or penalty systemÂ
Most social networks are putting a heavy emphasis on how many connection a user have. A user’s worth is based on his/her number of connection, not on the quality of those connections. This tends to drive a lot of people to try to connect to as many people as they can. Mary Hodder likens this effort to collecting baseball cards, an apt metaphor since the number of connections you have is no guarantee of the value of those connections. Â
However, few of the social networking sites are doing anything to gate the amount of connection. One of the nice thing on asmallworld is that it actually penalizes people for sending out invitations that were declined. I believe this is a good thing as it makes people rethink whether they want to attempt a connection or not.Â
The other question is the reward in social networking: what do I get for sharing my contacts? We know what the companies get but it’s sometimes fuzzier to see what extra value one gets from a social network. Some have done a good job at showing a sense of mission, whether it is job-related and expertise-related connectivity like connections LinkedIn or dating like… well, this is where it gets trickier.
3. Not granular enough
Context is generally missing from most social networks. For example, I may know Bob in a social context as a friend but I have no idea of how good an employee he is. Or I may know Joe in a work context but not realize that he’s not dating material for my friends. The lack of granularity as to the types of relationships is another current failure of most social networking sites.
The other thing that is missing from social network is a more fine-tuned approach to ranking relationships. Relationships are not binary. It’s not either someone is my friend or not. The truth of the matter is that relationships are very granular in nature: I may be a close friend to John, whom I’ve known for 20 years and hang out with on a daily basis and I may have been a friend with Peter in the past but haven’t seem him in 10 years. Yet, to a social network, if I added both of them as friends, we have the same types of relationships.
Similarly, there seems to be a trigger missing for evolving relationships: what if my relationship with Peter has been slowly degrading over time. Do I kick him out as a friend (an option few networks allow) or do I keep him on my list. This granularity is missing and it is odd that it doesn’t exist as it would be relatively easy to capture this data.
Situational relevance is another factor that is largely ignored by social networks today: in what context does that network function. It’s something that needs to be more granularly defined than the catch-all approach of existing implementations.
2. Not integrated with other apps
Should social networks be standalone apps or is social networking just a feature? There is really little value in knowing people just for the sake of knowing people. However, there is value in interfacing with those people, whether it is to find a job, get some information from a subject matter expert, find money, or get a new date.
I believe the real value of social network sites to the end user will eventually be discovered when they start integrating with other components like email and IM. Presence (is the person online or not), location services (where in the physical world is the person right now) and communication (can I phone/IM/email/page them now) would add greatly to the value of social networks.
However, at the current time, few efforts have been made to integrate the social networks with other apps. Which brings me to the biggest reason why social networks fail:Â
1. Walled Gardens
At the end of the day, social networking sites are walled gardens. They do not want to share information with others for fear that it will dilute their power as THE central hub for all relationships. This lack of interoperability is the primary problem with social networking sites and, I believe, one of the reason why their growth is impeded. A network that would be willing to open up could see better integration with other tools and could benefit from other sites connecting to it and creating more specialized sub-networks. For example, a large social networking site could become a large repository of a number of relationships with smaller sites looking at it to specialize across horizontal uses (for example, creating a site focused on dating or job search) or vertical ones (for example, a site focused on information exchange between subject matter experts within one particular domain)
Comments
1Denken Ãœber | Un simple weblog — Apr 07, 2007 : 6:57 pm
July 3, 2006 11:31 pm | CategorÃa: Comunidades Online Bastante interesantes los artÃculos que escribió Tristan Louis sobre las redes sociales, uno es 5 reasons why social networks fail y el otro es 5 reasons why social networks can succeed (noten el “pueden†que usa en esta parte) Razones para el fracaso de una red social 1. Problemas de privacidad; 2. Ningun sistema real de premios y castigos;
[IMG iStock_000000413234Small.jpg] Here are three interesting essays about how social networks work. Highly relevant reading for anyone in a social networking company—or investing in one. 5 reasons why social networks fail 5 reasons why social networks can succeed Situational Relevance in Social Networking Websites Original Post: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/06/social_networki.html Posted by Futurelab at 2:08 PM
Cela fait presque quatre ans que le networking social est un phénomène de masse (aux US tout du moins). Tristant Louis fait le point en listant ce qui marche et ce qui ne marche pas… Une lecture indispensable. Les 5 pistes pour aller au succès Les 5 erreurs à ne pas faire Publié réflections, social networking, analyse, vie privée, social software, Réseaux Sociaux | Modifier | Aucun commentaire »
You can download the full paper on the Working Paper website of the Program on Networked Governance at Harvard. Also: check out my entry on the Program on Networked Governance Blog. Appendix: Interesting post: “Why social networks fail†over at Tristan Louis’ weblog.
cure multiple web personality disorder” depending upon how you look at it. As an aside, I think they might be missing an important point, context; we have “multiple personalities” in real life, too. Tristan Louis expands upon this in a post about why social networks fail. And, as Stowe Boyd writes, “If social networks provide a value, it has to be contextual. An SNA connot provide some sort of blanket support for all sorts of people doing all sorts of things.
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Tristan Louis gives us 5 reasons why social networks fail and 5 reasons why social networks can succeed. I would add that social networks can fail or succeed depending on whether they attract the right type of crowd at the first place, then balance members quality and quantity. Example: if you and your
5 reasons why social networks can succeed 5 reasons why social networks fail Top Ten Underserved Web 2.0 Markets Posted in Social Networks, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment
fait presque quatre ans que le networking social est un phénomène de masse (aux US tout du moins). Tristant Louis fait le point en listant ce qui marche et ce qui ne marche pas… Une lecture indispensable. Les 5 pistes pour aller au succès Les 5 erreurs à ne pas faire Mr Boin | Social Software | [IMG Date:] samedi 1 juillet 2006 à 10:19 | [IMG Commentaires:] 0 | [IMG Trackbacks:] 0
This plays a part in sharing personal life experience. This sorted group would have to be provided with the following amenities (although a much more comprehensive and well thought out list can be found at TNL.com): Anonymity: One would need to feel safe. All the above information would be hidden. No Spam: Nothing kills a group faster than spam messages. It depersonalizes the experience. Although ads could be provided in a neutral location to raise revenue.
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Les 5 pistes pour aller au succès Les 5 erreurs à ne pas faire Technorati Tags: networking, réseaux, social, sociaux 25/07/2006 dans Lu sur le web, Social Networking | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | TrackBack (0)
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(in 2007, I actually did some projections on the growth of Second Life, one of the more popular virtual world). In parallel, I examined opportunities in social networks, reasons for their success, and potential for failure. One of the issue I see as potentially arising is surrounding what happens when virtual and real world collide? Along with all the other entries I listed here, I started to develop a new view of the future, which I highlighted into the
fait presque quatre ans que le networking social est un phénomène de masse (aux US tout du moins). Tristant Louis fait le point en listant ce qui marche et ce qui ne marche pas… Une lecture indispensable. Les 5 pistes pour aller au succès Les 5 erreurs à ne pas faire Mr Boin | Social Software | [IMG Date:] samedi 1 juillet 2006 à 10:19 | [IMG Commentaires:] 0 | [IMG Trackbacks:] 0
how Social networks will provide new opportunities to the least desired of our communities. If Facebook were to have any worries about the possible success of their platform, and who in their right blog would doubt it ? , they might take a look at 5 Reasons Social Networks fail. Tristan Louis hits on a few more salient points to issues concerning social networks, certainly as much as Chris Pirillo managed. However you can ignore the rather obvious †we are; your not!â€
[...] Le site SmartMobs nous propose une analyse de la valeur des réseaux sociaux à travers deux billets : “5 raisons d’échec des réseaux sociaux” et “5 raisons de succès des réseaux sociaux” (attention, contenu en anglais)… Voilà une occasion de réagir sur le sujet ! Cat: [...]
[...] 5 reasons why social networks fail Análise crÃtica sobre redes sociais (tags: socialnetwork) [...]
20Fabian — Jul 01, 2006 : 7:33 am
Dear Tristan,
great post. I especially agree with your second point (missing integration with other apps), but want to point you to a webservice that is about to launch in september. At its heart it’s a browser extension that allows users to build trusted social networks with other users from which they want to get page ratings from while browsing or searching the web.
Basically we just use social networking for the distribution of metadata (ratings, tags, comments etc.), that otherwise comes from anonymous (=not necessarily trustworthy) sources.
It’s old page and documentation can be found here: http://getoutfoxed.comWe are currently in a closed beta testing phase and I’d love to invite you to it. If you’re interested, just drop me a line!
Best,
-Fabian
[...] 5 Reasons Why Social Networks Fail [...]
[...] Tristan Louis lists some reasons why social networks may fail. One reason is that people pay attention to their privacy and are not willing to share all their private data. Tristan also says that such networks have to get more integrated with other applications and have to stop their existence as “walled gardens”. [...]
23Princess Sarah — Jul 01, 2006 : 3:00 pm
i think facebook.com does the job best.
24harper — Jul 01, 2006 : 8:55 pm
Whats funny – is that fulfills all these rules.
No interoptibility, Ran by a former spam company, Not integrated with anything, too big, and no obvious reward or penalty system.
Yet it is the biggest and craziest website ever. wtf.
[...] Why Social Networks Fail [...]
26dave — Jul 02, 2006 : 1:09 pm
have you actually looked for any of these sites? you sound completely out of touch with what you are trying to comment on.. Add/remove friends, pms, email, skype, icq, all these things have been around in social network communities for years. And you say: “There is really little value in knowing people just for the sake of knowing people.” Did you stop to think that the biggest social networks are friends sites? People want to know people for making friends, not to use them or sell them out to make money!
Try typing penpals, mailfriends, friends communities, or anything similar into search engines and you might learn something. You sound like someone telling us it would be a good idea if phones were portable (the things you are talking about have already happened!!!!)
Regards, dave27themaskedman — Jul 03, 2006 : 3:06 pm
I think you are totally out of touch too. You are missing the whole point of these things. These AUGMENT real world relationships… who the hell wants to have FIRST contact with someone through one of these. Not me nor any of my friends. We use these to keep in touch with people we ALREADY know or have met. The things that you are talking about are almost all irrelevant to what we actually are using MySpace and Facebook for.
28Tristan Louis — Jul 03, 2006 : 9:53 pm
Dave: I\’m actually on quite a few social networks and, apart from linkedin, most of them have been completely useless to me.
TheMaskedMan: If their sole purpose is to augment real world relationships, then they are not really social networks (in the traditional sense of the term). MySpace and Facebook are useful as points of identity and connection with others but what \”networking\” value do they provide. I understand they work as social space but how do they work on the second axis of the equation?
[...] 5 Reasons social networks succeed 5 reasons why social networking fails [...]
[...] He links to three different theories, here’s the highlights: Essay One: 5 reasons why social networks fail -Tristan Louis 5. Privacy concerns (Jeremiah, Agreed, spot on –that’s why folks often create avatars) [...]
31Duncan — Jul 06, 2006 : 6:50 pm
I have been in several groups over a number of years. It depends on what you put into a group as to what you get back. As my life has changed, I have moved away from some groups and toward others. It can be a lot of work.
32kenobi — Jul 07, 2006 : 12:39 pm
I’ve yet to visit a network where I don’t think ‘what now?’. Okay, it’s a ‘lean back’ activity for people who want to browse / kill time, but man, I can think of better ways. Social networks are nothing new – they’re blogs with a greater emphasis on the the ‘my favourites / related links’. Only now they’re called ‘friends’.
“who the hell wants to have FIRST contact with someone through one of these. Not me nor any of my friends. We use these to keep in touch with people we ALREADY know or have met.”
Just because i am rude doesn’t make me wrong. The majority of people on these sites use them to make new friends, not keep in touch with the ones they have.
yes you can meet these people in real life, and yes those friendships can end up being much stronger than friends you met offline, because if you read people’s message board posts and profiles you can have much more idea what kind of person they are before you start a friendship with them, than you do when starting friendships with people offline who you know much less about, because people are much more public in showing their character and have the opportunity to do so, much more easily online.
[...] From Smartmobs I found a reference to an interesting article by Tristan Louis a internet commenter on the reasons why social networks fail. Louis lists five reasons and I thought I would have a look at each of them in relation to Wikipedia. The first rule is walled gardens which is a hot little meme right now. I have heard it in a couple of different places. Louis says this: [...]
35Nate — Jul 26, 2006 : 5:12 pm
Privacy concerns are far and beyond the top reason why social netoworks fall. Myspace is being constantly charged for certain security issues because nobody tells real information and people begin talking to people they thought were around their age with the same interests. While Myspace now exists as the #1 site, it is going to have to chance some of its systems or else HUGE problems will arise.
36Aasim Saied — Jul 30, 2006 : 6:02 pm
All your comments are very true. As a creator of the new social networking/business website ifora.com, I can tell that a lot of people use these networking sites mainly to show off to their friends and to date. Facebook is now going to be in as much trouble as myspace because of including high schools to join in. Our research and development team/surveyors have detected a lot adults using facebook to check out photos and contacting highschool students inspite of restriction of .edu for Universities and invite only for highschool. ifora.com is going to be the most secure social network that will satisfy the right legal need for such a network. I would like to see your comments after ifora is release on September, its right now under construction so we have blocked a few features.
[...] Why social networks fail [...]
[...] Alle Aktionen im Netzwerk tragen zum Status bei. Die Produzenten können sowohl belohnt als auch bestraft werden. [...]
[...] 5 reasons why social networks fail [...]
40Top Ten Lists — Oct 31, 2006 : 11:26 am
[...] 5 reasons why social networks fail [...]
[...] There are a few signs of the social networking aspect of this new service including users, interests, and blogs. After glancing at the screenshot it seems like there will be some definite problems with this startup since there are already a lot of social networking communities established including some of the most popular like MySpace and Facebook. Will Teet be fashionable late in the social networking industry and catch up with the others or will it join the failing sites? Unfortunately we will not be able to see any outcome until February of 2007. [...]
[...] As an aside, I think they might be missing an important point, context; we have “multiple personalities” in real life, too. Tristan Louis expands upon this in a post about why social networks fail. And, as Stowe Boyd writes, “If social networks provide a value, it has to be contextual. An SNA cannot provide some sort of blanket support for all sorts of people doing all sorts of things.” [...]
[...] 5 reasons why social networks fail (tags: social networks socialnetwork) [...]
[...] The TNL.net weblog » 5 reasons why social networks fail Thoughts on why social networks fail (tags: social-networking mistakes problems failure internet people relationships) [...]
45Strafverteidiger München — Apr 19, 2007 : 3:57 pm
[…] Tristan Louis lists some reasons why social networks may fail. One reason is that people pay attention to their privacy and are not willing to share all their private data. Tristan also says that such networks have to get more integrated with other applications and have to stop their existence as “walled gardens”. […]
[...] Failure for Free December 8, 2008 at 6:47 pm | In Uncategorized | Tags: Clay Shirky In the 10th chapter of Here Comes Everyone, Clay Shirky discusses the many social networking failures. [...]
47Sociálnà sÃtÄ› — Feb 26, 2009 : 7:33 pm
I think social networks can produce revenue not only for owners of a net, but also for members.
