Ionrock Dot Org

Last night I was a little tired of having a few facebook requests sitting in my inbox and decided to log in. Two of the requests were from some random folks I didn't know. Being used to the MySpace way of life, I was going to approve them as they seemed harmless. Facebook promptly informed it was dumb to add them as friends if I didn't even know them. I took the advice and let them both go.

My Facebook experience is matching up very well with my Friendster and Orkut experiences. None provide anything useful to me at all an only require me to work. I just cannot stand this model. YouTube is another social site that asks for content but the results could be fame, backing up a video, or sharing a video with friends. I think I have a flickr site laying around somewhere because I wanted to do the exact same thing at one time so this does make more sense to me Facebook/Friendster/Orkut.

If you notice I did not include MySpace simply because as a musician is does provide value. It gives everyone an opportunity to hear our music. That is really it. I can't tell you how many shows we have played with someone new who says, "I am excited to see you guys, I heard your stuff on MySpace".

I suppose in my mind, a site much provide value outside of the network. Facebook has seemed popular because it is the first "social networking" site with a serious API and way to make thirdparty apps. From a developer point of view this does seem exciting, but it still doesn't provide intrinsic value to the users.

My theory is that depending on the network for all the value makes it impossible to create something like google. If all you have is the number of users to attract and provide value then all you really have is a fad. The critical mass is expensive technically as well as removing value from users. People enjoy network based sites because it provides relationships, but when you have crazy amounts of people it becomes strained. Imagine going to a bar the size of the Rose Bowl? Sure, they could give funny hats or something to help find people, but that point the concept or metaphor is broken. People go to a bar to meet people *and* drink. Even if no one is there, you can still grab a beer and watch TV.

For the record I don't believe adding value is easy. Adding value without adding tons of work is a hard problem. But, searching massive amounts of text and indexing the web was also hard to solve and that seemed to pay off, so it makes a little more sense.

Permalink | Comments