Social Networks 2.0
A question was recently posted on Linked In about the future of Social Networks. And not a week goes by when someone doesn’t ask me about building on of these behemoths. It’s hip, it’s trendy, and “everyone uses FaceBook or MySpace.” Lets ignore the business aspects of this for a moment – which drives much of the interest, anyway – and look at where this whole deal is heading.
When one steps back and looks at Facebook and MySpace, and view it as a “network” one can indeed see that it is a vast set of connections from one person to another, or many others. It is a network much like the streets of a city … it provides the means to get something from one place to another; or like a phone book … you can look up anyone you may want to find and contact them.
This is basically a “passive” network. When you really boil these services down, they are a place to put “stuff” where other people can find it, and a place to find other people’s “stuff.” Anyone who uses these still needs a phone, email, IM, TXT-messages, RSS readers, a Twitter client, and so on. So, the actual real-time networking between people is actually carried out outside of the social networking sites.
