Comments on: Social Network Evolution

By: RandySpangler

RandySpangler — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:45:01 +0000

Well, looking back one year, I can say categorically that you were wrong. Not that that is so bad, but being a seer in the technology and social media business is risky. Twitter has exploded and FriendFeed is the most awkward and confusing user experience I have used.

You are right about the ecosystem surrounding SM is getting bigger and better. MySpace is losing fast and Twitter is big because of the brevity of the message and the anonymity of the following IMHO.

By: kyle sanchiz

kyle sanchiz — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:37:50 +0000

If you want something like you described in that last bit, its up to you to make it! No one’s going to make a good ’service’ for you. Do it yourself!

By: Jarred

Jarred — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:41:13 +0000

To answer your parting query, Sean, the next step in the evolution of social media is having a centralized “dashboard” for your online identity. No more filling out profile after profile, going to FriendFeed, adding the service, and repeating for each of the hundreds and thousands of socially-enabled websites that will emerge in the coming months and years. If the current phase of social media evolution is aggregating information after it is created, then the next evolution is avoiding fragmentation in the first place. This is the effort being put forth by Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect.

Basically, Google and Facebook want to be the place where you create and manager your social data — bio, friends, pictures, links, etc. The websites that use these two as identity providers will provide value by organizing, using, and growing that information. FriendFeed and other stand-alone aggregators will be irrelevant because identity fragmentation will no longer be a problem to solve.

By: Liz

Liz — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:35:45 +0000

There is one element I don’t hear being talked much about by the technology or marketing folks. There are a lot of people in my world who have, for example, one user name in one online community of college friends, a different identity in a gaming community, a third persona in a professional context, and and have a different circle of intimate friends and family. How do you aggregate these multiple identities without causing them to elide?

I try to explain Twitter or Meetup to my family and they just don’t understand it or the level of trust people have with setting up meetings with people they only know online. In certain businesses, people merge their offline and online identities but on some bulletin boards and in some discussion groups I’ve participated in for over 10 years, I still don’t know the real names of some people whom I otherwise know a lot about. The get-togethers we’ve had have been some of the best social occasions I’ve attended but it took months and sometimes years of interaction before they occurred.

I realize there are generational differences but successful technology should be able to aggregate distinct, multiple identities and allow the user to access their data without it being in a public stream. In other words, I’d like to stay connected with the people I work with, but they don’t need to see my Tweets!

By: Sean Percival

Sean Percival — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:13:51 +0000

From FF comment, re my last point.

Check out http://noserub.com/

By: Sean Percival

Sean Percival — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:11:00 +0000

Ya after a week of the replies being down users couldn’t have good conversations. This has become a huge part of the site, also something FF does MUCH better.

By: Juan

Juan — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:07:27 +0000

Pretty solid analysis, dude. I’m still wondering why the great migration happened all in one weekend though… care to speculate?

By: Sean Percival

Sean Percival — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:20:52 +0000

@J Phil

Ya the plugin seems to take some time to “catch up” to FF.

The plugin doesnt have much in the way of styling, I hacked it quite a bit for this. Also removed the comment to friendfeed form. Too cluttered and requires a login.

By: Chris Herbert

Chris Herbert — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:51:19 +0000

Sean: I believe the future of social networking must rest in the hands of the individual who must control his/her identity on a server located in his/her home. I’ve proposed an idea and new product line to a major technology manufacturer that is aimed at making this a reality. Web developers are welcome to help me make this happen!!

By: J. Phil

J. Phil — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:25:16 +0000

I liked your fractal analogy here. And it really does feel like things are subdividing and there’s constantly a need for an even bigger aggregator.

As long as the aggregator on top is generating new content though, there will always be a need for an even bigger meta-aggregator, lol.

BTW, nice styling of the FF comments plugin, but it doesn’t seem to be noticing that there is a lot of activity on your entry on friendfeed…?

By: Sean Percival

Sean Percival — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:31:53 +0000

Oh forgot to mention, I’ve added the FriendFeed Wordpress plugin here as well.

Portability FTW

By: Muhammad Saleem

Muhammad Saleem — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:26:46 +0000

The beauty is in the fact that lifestream aggregators like FriendFeed make your entire social network somewhat portable (via the import feature as you mentioned). Without network portability people wouldn’t be moving as fast; they want to be where their friends are. Just so happens that their friends are already in Friendfeed