How To Split An Atom

Get more articles like this and Register for our Forum.

BusinessWeek is pointing to the emerging trend of social networks designed to cater strictly to a specific audience. Instead of having a general purpose social network like Facebook, or a niche but open social network like LinkedIn, this crop of social spaces (Reuters Spaces, InMobile and Diamond lounge) check your credentials at the door. If you aren’t a part of the industry they cater to, you don’t get in.

As the number of social networks increases and the market becomes more saturated, we have to ask whether this type of self-selection is the future of online communities.

Dust Off The Members Only Jacket

Social Networks only function well when they mirror the way that real world networks behave. Facebook wouldn’t have worked well if it didn’t start in college campuses, where students were in close proximity of each other. MySpace wouldn’t have worked if it didn’t resonate so well with music lovers and bands. General purpose social networks, without a specific initial focus are a hard sell because that is not the way human beings socialize.

Colleges, Businesses, Clubs, Cities, States, Countries, Forums in almost all real world examples strong communities are formed when the members have some resonance with each other. They don’t have to agree, they don’t even have to be the “same” but they generally need to be either in close enough physical proximity or have close enough ways of approaching life to band together. The same basic principle applies to sub-cultures, these “invite only” groups usually require members to subscribe to similar ways of thinking in order to be accepted.

Why then should online social spaces be different? Most of these new social networks will build much stronger communities than a modern Facebook or MySpace can. They are targeting a demographic and catering exclusively to their interests. Everyone on these networks “speaks the same language.” For example, whether you are in California or Idaho, mobile technologies people (InMobile) understand each other much more than they understand the ramifications of Radiohead releasing In Rainbows. These networks are giving them a way to have a rich dialog with each other about subjects of interest without the noise usually associated with a general purpose network.

Web 2.0 Roundup

People speak of the ubiquitous social network, I think that it can exist but in all likelihood it will need to be built using the paradigms set by networks like Reuter’s Spaces and InMobile. They will need to give people a way to group themselves that blocks out external noise, and travel between these groups with ease. Navigation through a network like this should feel a lot more like traveling from Florida to Philadelphia than just clicking on a tab in a sub-menu. It’s not at all about the content, it’s about how that content is arranged.

I am interested in seeing how these types of networks progress. Also, what do you think? Should Social Networks be one size fits all or is their something to be said about private networks?

[Be sure to subscribe to the RSS Feed before leaving]