Markus Frind, who runs a successful dating site, is usually pretty contrarian. So, it’s no surprise to see he says most social networks will fail.
I’m not sure I agree with all his data, but I do agree with his sentiment, with a qualifier. If “social network” is defined as a site that exists purely as a collection of friends and contacts. Think MySpace and Friendster, a place where there is nothing to do beyond socialize. Places that break my first rule of social Web sites will have a hard time sticking around.
The market for social sites that do something beyond connect people is virtually unlimited. Give me a reason to go to your site and then let me share the experience with others. We may be seeing the end of social networks, but it’s just the beginning of social Web sites.
Don’t know if you were there or not, but Mike Davidson touched on this at webvisions as well. Basically, only about 1% are going to actually contribute to the social aspect of things, so make sure you have a good thing going even without the social networking–that should just be an added bonus. It’s an interesting point, and a valid one, I believe.
MySpace is very much a fad, and will likely lose most of its popularity sometime in the near future. To say it will disappear entirely, though, I think is a bit much. And it’s done what it meant to do, hasn’t it? Made tons of money.
I agree that a minority of users contribute in most social sites. I saw Mike’s talk and Rashmi Sinha had a similar point in her session.
Not only does having another purpose to a site give members more reason to use it, but I think it also greatly enhances the experience of those who take advantage of the social features.
As for MySpace disappearing, I also doubt it. The part of Markus’ point I agree with is that there are a limited amount of sites that can just be social networks. Right now MySpace is the top dog. Friendster was the place to be a few years ago, so who knows how secure that top spot is.
Well, I hate those Social Networking site like Orkut or MySpace, but sometimes I do get traffic from those sites.