Your Face, Everywhere -- Are There Too Many Social Networks?

In the last three days I received two invitation to join Facebook, one invitation to join Pownce and two inquiries about my Twitter address (see an analysis by USAToday). Mind you, I have a profile on LinkedIn, and an old one on Ryze -- remember that one? Does anyone use it anymore? And let's not forget Jaiku.

Why do we need so many tools for social interactions? Have we suddenly become incapable of interacting with our friends, neighbors and colleagues?

Have we become so isolated in our daily work life as agents of our destiny that we need to have surrogate environments to hang out?

More importantly -- What about the work it takes to update all these networks? I have a hard enough time updating my LinkedIn! Has anyone thought about integrating?

And now that we have social networks are blogs obsolete?

There's a passionate conversation going on at Deep Jive Interests, started somewhere at Scobleizer and continued at Gapingvoid. Tony Hung took it over to The Blog Herald. Hint, there is mention again of the A-list and social networks. Ich bin auf der Z-Liste! I always wanted to say that in German. Thank you, Tony.

Have you seen your blog traffic decrease? According to Scoble's friends, this is because they assume their readers are now off to social networks. How many friends do you really have? How many people can you really call friends? I mentioned I have an extensive network in a previous post, these are not all friends and most do not read my blog. I will post about how to grow and nurture such a group in the future.

I think Tony nails it when he says that the answer to mega gazillion friends that some already have on these social networks is popularity. The more popular you are, the more people want to rub shoulders with you. Maybe some of the magic dust will make you lucky, etc. Tony says:

"Social Networks don’t change that [popularity]. And in many cases, I suspect, it's not a binary or mutually exclusive phenomenon either. Just *because* you introduce mediums that ask for your continuous partial attention, such as Twitter or Pownce, OR, walled-in gardens such as Facebook it doesn’t mean that you necessarily take away from blogging — which is one of the greatest one-to-many publishing mediums available."

Is this the twilight of blogging? Asks Tony at The Blog Herald. Before you answer that, he maintains it isn't. He says:

"Because, with respect to blogging, all of these services and applications are essentially creating a niche for the same people for whom blogging is not a good fit. As easy as it is to blog, it is even *easier* to join a social network that is robust, and where all of your friends and contacts *already* belong. And I think these kinds of places are a *better* fit for people who are looking to write and publish things of a personal nature, things that are purely for their own benefit, or people who just want to “try” out writing and publishing their own thoughts.

This will allow blogging to mature into the medium it was always destined to be, allowing blogs that remain to be voices that continue to be exceptionally passionate and opinionated, if not immediate, funny, intelligent, thought-provoking, or entertaining — because they will be written for people who learned, or who are dedicated to learning about blogging.

In a sentence, the signal-to-noise ratio will start *rising*. There will be more blogs that will appear to be worth reading, watching, or listening to if, for no other reason, than all the other “try-me-out” blogs will start disappearing.

And this is a very good thing."

Let's review here the motivations that prompted so many of us to enter the self-publishing world:

• To have a voice -- to express opinions, share knowledge, learn something
• To increase our opportunities for business -- let's face it, even when we say we use this medium as a branding tool, we like to get some side benefits that are monetary, yes? Not to mention the very important reason to have a dialogue with customers.
  
• To expand our horizons -- stretching is good. This has been geek week for me, for example. We can take what we learn here back to our day jobs, clients, and partners and be more valuable in utilizing these tools appropriately.

Building relationships and creating community are outcomes of these motivations. Greg Verdino via Gavin Heaton pointed us to Common Craft who show the most basic features and benefits of social media and focus more on what people can actually do with these tools. I like that, action.

What do you think? Are there too many social networks? What have you found useful as in action-driven? Do you need to be there because that makes you cool or because you can actually do things with those tools that you cannot do with blogs?

[Thanks to Chris Baskind, Paperfrog and Greg Verdino, Greg Verdino's Marketing blog for the assistance with some of the stats for the chart. The aim was to provide a visual orientation to non geeks, not a carved-in-stone statistical piece. If you have better numbers, let me know. I'll be happy to update it.]
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ASIDE you may find interesting. This is an email I got from Greg last night with some tidbits about usability. Since I see him as the new/emerging media guru in my circle of bloggers, here it is for your information, unedited (thanks, Greg!).

"Jaiku is pretty much exactly the same as Twitter -- the interface is a bit prettier but the functionality, ease of use is exactly the same. Not sure if it integrates with Facebook yet (Twitter does.) 

 

Facebook itself as a Twitter-like "status" function that provides updates to your Facebook friends but is only for your Facebook friends. It's easy enough to use but that's not really the main reason people are in Facebook. And on top of that, a lot of FB users now also embed their Twitter into their FB page, so the two presence apps (FB status and Twitter) are kinda redundant.

Pownce seems like it is just as easy to use -- and I think (again I'm not a user) allows for more control (you can update everyone, just one specific person - both of which you can do in Twitter and Jaiku - or only your friends - which Twitter and Jaiku don't allow) and it sounds like they also allow you to do things like transfer files over the service (with Twitter you can only embed links).

 

One biggish issue that nobody is really talking about is that anyone who starts using more than one of these services (or multiple social networks, sharing sites, etc) finds herself with multiple circles of friends, constantly updating various profiles/status posts, etc - there isn't any way for a user to bring all of their stuff/friendships/updates together in a single interface -- which can be a real pain if you're in MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube and del.icio.us.  YIKES!"

For marketers -- reviews of Twitter and Pownce (thanks, Matt!)

Comments

[ann michael]

Wow Valeria!

I have to say that all of this stuff is getting exhausting to me. While I'm intensely interested in the evolution of media in general (and social media in particular), I'm starting to become content to watch, read, and learn from afar for 6-12 months to see what a new application does.

I was actually looking for a Pownce invite last night on Twitter and had to take a step back and ask myself why. I don't have the time for all this.

So for me, I'm sticking with blogging (and the apps that support that like Technorati and MyBlogLog), LinkedIn, and some Twitter!

When something new looks like it's worth it I'll check it out after the Greg's of the world have already done so!

a

[Philippe]

This is a major post, Valeria

I believe there are a lot of tools for a community that is quiet small. The reach of applications like delicious or twitter is quiet small. I looked at the stats of social media: http://badideaindeed.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/the-not-that-global-conversation/) and it remains very niche in the internet population.

I also noticed that most social networks are used to deepen existing relationships: you start by leaving comments on a blog, then you ad the person in your linkedin contacts, you join his/her mybloglog community,... Bernardo Huberman measured that 90% of the messaging volume on facebook is made by people who know each other in real life (with an enormous percentage of classmates).

Are there too many tools? I think so but it's because they are all incomplete. I expect the emergence of big composite applications in the near future that will help us to syndicate our social networks.

[David Armano]

Valeria,

Nice analysis. You've managed to combine a few thoughts into one post. Each is important. But usability aside—there is the question of useful. How useful is it to have so many networks going on at once?

You may have seen over at my blog that I created a fake social network called "Bougie". I was surprised at how many people actually wanted to sign up for another new service. We've now reached maximum capacity in out ability to handle digital relationships. I think this may be causing a type of stress that people aren't ready to handle...

[mindblob]

Valeria,

Brilliant analysis. How could people who are not "into the online groove" yet -and we know how many are out there- find their way through all these networks, tools and linking platforms? Will there be a natural selection of the tools by the users themselves? (and only best services to remain and grow?).

What Philippe says is interesting and probably right. We might see macro-composite applications emerge and telling people : "Hey... look, we link all your tools together and help you through all this time consuming process". A bit like mergers between complementary companies.

Then from a more philosophical point of view I would be wondering... isn't this a bit like trying to put all the free fishes of the ocean in one huge "controlled" aquarium?

The paradox of the word "social" is the word "individual". I believe that there will always be free fishes. Natural selection is what made us humans and I think it still rules over our digital communication roots.

[Ryan Karpeles]

Excellent post, Valeria. Personally I don't think there are too many social networks. Many of them exist, but we're not forced to use them.

It's like saying, "There's too much alcohol in this world. We're all going to be hammered and it's going to cause major problems." The reality is--just because something is there, it doesn't mean we have to use it.

So what's the problem?

The problem is expectations. If we start to expect everyone we know to be engaged online 24/7, then we're in trouble. As developed as our brains might be, we simply can't handle the stress, hassle and difficulty of maintaining hundreds (even thousands) of e-lationships.

At some point, you have to make a choice. You decide how connected you want to be. You decide how many friends you tally up. It sounds selfish, but the decision has to almost 100% personal. If you can't keep up with it all, limit yourself to what you're capable of.

It's not a game. People with more friends don't win. Instead, it's a choice about which relationships (and ultimately how many) you want to truly develop.

[Alex Bellinger]

I don't think there are too many social networks. I think there are too many people piling into many more than one social network and becoming overwhelmed.

It's as if we're herd animals endlessly on the move from Ryze to LinkedIn to Twitter to Facebook. Sooner or later I think we'll put down roots in an online place where our friends stick around and continue to participate.

Otherwise we're going to be left with hundreds of social networks littered with the stubbed out butts of online human identity.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when I can stop being an early adopter and settle down somewhere nice and comfy online.

[Mike Wagner]

Charles Handy once asked in a HBR article, "could Capitalism kill Capitalism?" He went on to demonstrate that it could.

Your provocative post has me asking, "could Social Media kill Social Media?"

Thank you, as always, for getting my mind racing on a hot, humid, July day here in Iowa.

Keep creating,
Mike

[Valeria Maltoni]

Ann -- thank you for kicking off the conversation. you make the same argument I would (and companies by and large make). Stick to your knitting and wait until you discover what's solid and useful. If it integrates with what we already use it's better.

Philippe -- niche markets and uses are important. Should we expect to have convergence all the time? In some cases it's better not to have it. I joined Ryze early and did not figure out how I would use it. It felt too personal for a business networking place. I waited a little longer to join LinkedIn and I use it much more deliberately. I guess the current discussion is about being seen everywhere, which I alluded to in my title. Choices are better in my opinion. What makes sense for you?

[Valeria Maltoni]

DA -- oh, I must have missed Bougie, how can I join? All kidding aside, there is a bit of pressure to see and be seen that is clouding or coloring our perceptions of usefulness. Aggregation in delivery may be one answer for those who do wish to spread themselves over many media and channels, as Philippe says. The other solution is of course choosing.

Luc -- what a brilliant point! Yes, there is the question of individuality and control. Are we choosing the tool and being discriminating or are we being harnessed and leveraged? Natural selection as in survival of the most useful or the most powerful? That is part of the question, isn't it?

[Valeria Maltoni]

Ryan -- your wisdom and ability to apply critical thinking are always stunning. We are humans, we live inside our heads (mostly). We forget that not everyone does what we do and not everyone likes what we like. That is how organizations get in trouble. The product or service manager thinks his way is the best (or sadly only) way. And people with more comments are not better, etc. Amen!

Alex -- a new guest at Conversation Agent from the UK. Everyone, please welcome Alex by visiting with him at his site. He helps small businesses and shares the stories of entrepreneurs via podcast.

I love this image: "we're going to be left with hundreds of social networks littered with the stubbed out butts of online human identity." It's very powerful, thank you. Maybe a day when you can adopt something that is really useful to you. This prompts me to think about more customizable applications... anyone?

[Lewis Green]

Valeria,

Thought-provoking posts. As for me, I hold the same philosophy about Social Media tools as I have with all tools. I only use the ones I need to do the job. In this case, that means I share my blog and I am a member of LinkedIn.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Mike -- another writer to track down and read, thank you. Hot and humid here too. Social networking will be evolved, like everything else did. I have faith in the fact that adoption and ability to stay in business for providing value (real or perceived) will win the day.

Lewis -- I confess I have not dipped my toes into any of the newer tools. Like you, I am working on understanding and using the tools I already signed up for.

[CK]

What a terrific post. Wow! I do think there are many platforms...but that just gives us more choices on how we best want to interact, or the best format for each of us to interact through. For some that's Twitter, for others it's Facebook. For those who can juggle multiple platforms, more to them!

But I really like what Tony hits on with blogs being such a passionate outlet. I've not tried all of these new services but, I tell you, I just find such extraordinary value in blogging (writing my own and interacting with others) that it's gonna be a hard sell for me to divert my attention to other platforms. And that means I likely shouldn't since I've found what works for me to fulfill what I am seeking to give and get from this conversation.

Again, one heck of a great post--thanks for summarizing and analyzing all ;-).

[Mario Vellandi]

I like Facebook and many old and new friends are already on. I keep the dinosaur MySpace page only as a relic of the past.

I say cut the online time to the bare essentials, be mindful of the clock and your other interests and offline activities. Cook something new, tend to a mini garden, ???
The downside of virtual is that it can lead us to spend time that won't be memorable.

[Valeria Maltoni]

CK -- I was thinking of you talking about blogging and how passionate you are about the outcomes and value you receive from this publishing form. It's interesting for me to observe different dynamics among users and opinions on what people consider valuable. If we are ever to utilize these tools with permission-marketing initiatives, it is best to understand how people decide to use them. As well, the desired communication channel, etc.

Mario -- me cooking? I don't think so ;-) I must say that since I started a blog I spend more time online. Not a lot more, just different.

[Stephen Denny]

What would Groucho Marx say about all these social networking sites? What was once exclusivity is now ubiquity.

LinkedIn was once a helpful tool for meeting people with connections and knowledge; now, it feels like the connection strength is fading. There are people with thousands of "connections," whatever that means now. Instead of being "connectors," they have subverted the purpose of the service and gamed the system.

Blogs versus social networking? I don't think this is zero-sum -- to me, social networks are passive while blogs are active. One is a portrait while the other is a conversation.

Why so many social networks? Darwin will answer the question shortly, I'm sure.

[Stephanie Quilao]

The metaphor I like to use is that social networks are like snacks and blogs are meals. As an example, with Twitter, you can only write a limited amount of characters enough to tell people that you are watching fireworks or watching Steve Jobs speak. It's a nibble of information about what you're doing.

With blogs, you can get deep, express, link to multiple people, and create more meaningful value to the reader. There is more sustenance with a blog. Like this post for example, you could never write it in Twitter, Linked-In or even Facebook. Social means fun and light.

For me personally, I find that I have developed more meaningful relationships through my blog than through the social networks. In the Social networks if you're a cute, bubbly girl, you're going to get tons of "friends" just because you're hot looking, not too deep. But in blogs, people get to see more sides of you even if it is just about your life. And for people to come back to your blog, you really have to say something meaningful and of value.

Lastly, in tech you have to remember that people are fickle and always move to the newest "hot" thing that someone popular is pushing. I still don't get Twitter and think that in the long run something like that will not last as long as blogging. 100 years from now when they are looking at our culture, the historians will be pulling up the blogs to see how people lived, and to read their stories.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Stephen -- There is a lot of wisdom packed into your comment. LinkedIn is still a valuable tool to me. It allows me to follow up with people I get to know and find I have shared interests with. I agree, though, there are folks out there just collecting links... isn't that how everything works anyway? Online is no different.

I say those who care and are in it for the long haul, reap the most benefits.

Stephanie -- I really like your historian perspective. What would an anthropologist be able to tell? Exactly the same we can tell by reading people's blogs -- how do they think, what motivates them, their values, etc. So is there a difference between social networks friends and blog friends?

[Jan]

Hi Valeria,

I finally made it into the comment section of your blog. :-)

It sounds like a feeble excuse I know, but all the other articles I read here seemed so complete that I found it hard to add something and since I don't like to post "me too" or "great post" comments I refrained from commenting at all.

This is indeed a great post and one which I find it hard to add as well, but at least I can confess to being the one who invited you to Pownce. The only reason I did was because you know Tony Hung who invited me. He made invites to test it out and seems quite positive about it.

Personally I am not so sure. I do just not see what is new or revolutionary about it. It is slick and well built and all, but to concur with most others here, including you, do I really have other things to do. I think I will also rather use my blog as the platform from which I network even if the networking itself also happens in other media.

Should anyone here be interested do I still have invites to give away. It doesn't look like anyone would be, but I thought I would mention it nonetheless.

[Stephanie Quilao]

Outside of the web, in the real world (lol), we all have a mix of the good, deep friendships and the light fun ones. With some friends, you can talk about your life issues, and with some you can only go as deep as a cocktail glass. Whether it's social network or blog, only time and depth will reveal how the relationship grows...or not.

Can you imagine being an anthropologist 100 years from now, and having to read all this online content. Geez! I bet the assistants will have rows of assistants...lol...

[Anne Libby]

Valeria, I just pressed send on a piece of conversation with someone in my tribe on exactly this topic. Talk about the collective unconscious!

One thing I will add: for business, the value of the social network is created by our use of the word "no".

I'm new to Linked In, and when I got your invite I briefly considered declining; we don't know one another in real life. But I had a different sense of relationship, and potential relationship, because we were introduced (in real life!) by a trusted friend, and I've read your blog.

But I will say "no" to people I don't know, and people whose business behavior I don't appreciate. And I'm declining requests for Linked In recommendations until some kind of collective meaning becomes clear to me.

Do I want everyone in my network; do I want to be popular?

If we say "yes" to everyone, we're creating social networks that have about the same relevance as the telephone directory.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Jan -- welcome to the conversation. I hope people will find reason to come to your blog. I have found so many good articles and ideas there. Yes, you were the Pownce invitation, thank you.

Stephanie -- I often draw parallels between online and off line, too. We seem to forget that it's not about the technology, it's about the people. The anthropologists will call their assistants resources ;-)

Anne -- you bring up a very good point with the example of LinkedIn. Thank you for using it to illustrate how we met. One of the things we sometimes forget to do is considering our action in the light of how others see the world. Not everyone has the same philosophy on connecting. Relevance matters a great deal -- how could I connect like minded people if I did not know the people in my own network?

[Jeffro2pt0]

One biggish issue that nobody is really talking about is that anyone who starts using more than one of these services (or multiple social networks, sharing sites, etc) finds herself with multiple circles of friends, constantly updating various profiles/status posts, etc - there isn't any way for a user to bring all of their stuff/friendships/updates together in a single interface -- which can be a real pain if you're in MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube and del.icio.us. YIKES!"

Wow, this guy hit the nail on the head! Bill Gates always seems to talk about convergence with technology but I feel that because of the amount of Web 2.0 sites/services, social networks that have sprung up across the web, now would be a good time for a business venture to figure out, Web 2.0 convergence. Right now, users could probably get away with using RSS feeds on different sites in order to converge their online presence. Let me give you an example.

I use Twitter and Jaiku, two micro blogging platforms. Twitter being the main service that I use to post updates and links to my blog. I take my Twitter RSS feed and post it into Jaiku so that my Twitter updates can be viewed on Jaiku. I also take my Twitter feed and place it into my Tumblr account so that Twitter updates are displayed on my Tumblelog. Facebook has a Twitter application which takes care of my Twitter updates showing up on my Facebook account.

The downside to using this method is that, most of these sites do not check RSS feeds in real-time. At the very least, the feeds are checked once per half hour, meaning that what you post on twitter now, wouldn't appear on any other site that is displaying your Twitter RSS feed for at least 30 minutes. Sure it's not real time, but it works.

What I am trying to accomplish, is to join these other social networks and then join the communities inside of those networks that correspond to the content on my blog. I'm trying to build power profiles on these specific sites which will provide updates to my friends attached to those profiles, hopefully via Twitter.

Sorry for going on a tangent here but reading that paragraph up a above sparked this response! Just thought I would share what I am trying to do in order to converge all of this stuff so I am not doing what is described above, being apart of 50 different networks, spending all of my time providing separate updates to those sites. What a nightmare that would be.

[Chris Grayson]

Valeria Maltoni wrote:
> I have a profile on LinkedIn, and an old
> one on Ryze -- remember that one?

What about your SixDegrees account?

Valeria Maltoni wrote:
> Have we become so isolated in our daily
> work life as agents of our destiny that
> we need to have surrogate environments to
> hang out?

You're too close to it.

Outside of the naval gazing blogs about social networks, most people join networks to connect with a larger community of people with a common interest. People that, because of geography, are harder to connect with without such facilitators— you know, like shipwreck scuba divers, model plane builders, enthusiasts/collectors/hobbist of every stripe, and researchers of every niche obsession.

Not every blogger is a blogger about blogs, or uses social media to connect with other experts in social media. You're caught in a feedback loop.

Valeria Maltoni wrote:
> Do you need to be there because that
> makes you cool or because you can actually
> do things with those tools that you cannot
> do with blogs?

Let's face it, most people who are here on a blog such as this one stay on top of all these things because that is our business. Granted, most of us are technology junkies, early adopters, and love this stuff, that's how we ended up in this line of work to begin with. But it's very incestuous. In the big picture, the real aggregate for many of these products is still quite small. Go outside of your immediate circle, and most people have heard of MySpace, probably Facebook, and maybe Linked[in]. Beyond that, ask the person on the street, even in major metro areas, and they've never even heard of a damn one of these products.

Greg Verdino wrote:
> ...there isn't any way for a user to bring
> all of their stuff/friendships/updates
> together in a single interface...

This is only a feeble stop-gap, but John Swords blog pointed me in the direction of:
http://www.onxiam.com

By the time there is a shake-out, some of these companies will have incorporated the best features of their competitors, some will have bought each other and merged, and some of them will simply have died-off.

It is those of us who participate in this conversation, that live in the state of perpetual beta user/early adopter, that are the guinea-pigs for these trends. By the time it reaches the masses, the winners and losers will have largely been sorted out.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Jeffro:

Good tangent and thank you for the explanation of how you work it. It sounds like you are cross networking your efforts so you can keep up. Part of the fascination to me is the question:

why do we feel the need to sign up and keep up with multiple platforms?

Maybe your circle of friends and contacts uses those tools and so it makes perfect sense for you to join in. And people who are natives of this environment may not think twice about multichannel communications.

Is it really communications, though?

I guess in some ways it is. I ping people on sms (a purely European habit) and by IM, especially when I'm doing research for an article or a project. I find it convenient for small snippets of information.

For the real connection I prefer to pick up the phone and call, or face to face. Realizing that we might not always have the time and geographic proximity to do that. Another effect of a flat world, I suppose.