In preparation for some upcoming research, I've been surveying the field of Social Networking sites. The only way to characterize growth in the field is explosive; while I don't have actual numbers on how many social networking sites are out there, my informal survey shows we are talking at least hundreds, with more coming online each day. In the span of a year, social networking has proliferated - hundreds of millions of users have accounts on SNS-enabled sites. Indeed, social networking is now "just another feature" of many sites - we're coming to expect sites to be SNS-enabled.
At this point, you're probably familiar with the major SNS players - MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.com, even Friendster - as there are hundreds of emergent SNS players, what are sites you need to pay attention to? Here's my annotated list:
The Future of Social: Cyworld
With over 20 Million daily users, this South Korean social network is emerging as a strong model for the future of social networks. According to press citations linked from Wikipedia, over 25 percent of the South Korean polulation has a Cyworld account, with up to 90 percent of South Koreans in their 20's having an account. Cyworld is truly cutting edge; participants in this game-like social network can micropay for clothes, furniture and accessories. Karmic elements - knowing what the "world" thinks about you - keep people coming back. Speaking to users of the service, it is clear that Cyworld is nothing short of a phenomenon. We stand to learn alot from their success.
Taking on MySpace: Bebo
While US-Based, Bebo has found a strong international audience, particularly in the
Social Networking on the Subcontinent: Hi5
With over 40M users, Hi5 is the prominent SNS brand in
Monetizing Social Networks: Faceparty
With 6M users, this long-established UK-based SNS service isn't as popular - indeed, Bebo and Myspace have cut deeply into Faceparty's market. Regardless, Faceparty is notable as an SNS that has monetized its user base. Faceparty sells things like advanced identity controls, the ability to see who is viewing your profile, advanced search, and filtering. This is a different approach from Cyworld, one that creates issues of trust in the system - however, there is much to be learned from Faceparty's successes and failures.
What Facebook Could Become: XuQa
Facebook takes a fairly conservative approach to college social networking. The features, the look and feel - even at its raciest, Facebook is actually a pretty tame place. That was always a smart move - many of Facebook's users had never used an SNS prior to signing on. However, as students become familiar with Facebook, and see its limitations in the context of Myspace - it stands that they may want to branch out. XuQa represents the other end of the spectrum in college networking - it is purposefully racy, full of game-like features - an anti-Facebook. With 1M registered users, XuQa represents approximately 1/7 of Facebook's userbase - but the comparison isn't exactly is fair, as anyone can only college students can have a XuQa account. (Updated July 1) XuQa is on to something here - making social networking a game-like experience actually brings people back (just look at Cyworld). I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook integrates like features.
Ok - so that's my list - let's put it in context. As social networking becomes normal, a number of interesting trends emerge - trends that will have lasting implications for designers of social-enabled tools. Here's a handy bulleted list:
- Social networking is becoming content-centric. Essentially, companies are building social-enabled sites around content areas - be they cars, music or to-do lists. In this context, social networking adds the logical next layer to content-driven resources. This is an extremely important trend - in the future, all of our content sites will have SNS characteristics. Sites that move early and implement well could very easily steal a large audience pool from established content sites.
- Social networking is the vanguard of micropayment. As we've seen in Second Life, people are absolutely willing to exchange real-life dollars for virtual accessories and karma. Users vest a good part of their identity into their chosen social sites, so monetization possibilities abound; letting users buy little things that make their virtual live better, or more rich makes these sites fun. Indeed, I think fun is they key part - people don't want to pay to use social networking sites, they want to pay to make their experience better. I believe we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future.
- Social networking for the sake of social networking just doesn't cut it. Put simply, we want more from SNS-enabled sites than association. If we're going to invest our time into a SNS site, make it worth our while. Make it a game, make it entertaining, make it useful - but don't expect us to come if you think its enough to browse our friends profiles.
If you're a subscriber to my blog, you've probably seen me hit these points before. In my opinion, these trends are really telling. Social networking is absolutely here to stay - this is not simply a "phenomenon". The young users of these tools are situating their entire formative internet experience around them - and the affects of this social learning will inform use patterns throughout their life. Looking at the five sites I've profiled, we can see this "phenomenon" is not bound by geography or culture or language - everyone is welcome to join a social networking website, and hundreds of millions of people have done so. Put in context, we're really only at the beginning of "social networking" - these five sites, along with the established giants, will shape the future of our online social networking experience.
About the author:
Fred Stutzman is a Ph.D. student and teaching fellow at UNC's School of Information and Library Science, as well as co-founder of claimID.
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