My Pond Theory, or How Social Networks Avoid Failing

Jacob, over 2 years ago

 How to change So I think I have the answer to why, as they currently exist, social networks must ‘fail'. (You will have noted I put ‘fail' in inverted commas. Many will succeed in their own way, by staying small and avoiding this issue. Most of those will define that as failing, because they don't meet a particular definition of success, a definition which is too broad to be meaningful.) So how do we prevent the failure? As you can see, News Home is trying to do that by remaining quiet while others look for every media opportunity possible. They... Read More

My Pond Theory, or Why Social Networks Must 'Fail'

Jacob, over 2 years ago

If social groups are valued by their size and Google ranking, why does my favourite site work so hard to remain anonymous?  I've noted before that the main Social Networks (like MySpace and Facebook) each had their own position in the market, but are now pursuing the seemingly paradoxical task of being "more relevant to more people at the same time". The same can be said for many other social, Web 2.0 communities - in the social bookmarking space, you can trace a timeline by which Slashdot, then Digg, then Reddit, all followed the same journey from ‘focussed creation' to ‘generic... Read More