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Time For A Silver Bullet

readwriteweb.com — MySpace is booming in popularity; Facebook is gracing the headlines again; Bebo is growing incredibly; Tribe relaunched; Cyworld, Hive7 and SecondLife are nothing short of a phenomenon; LinkedIn is becoming 'People Search'; ITToolbox relaunched with a host of social networking features; Friendster is now refueling itself to enter the market again.

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  • gfunkera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Good overview of a bunch of social networks.
    • volve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Although they still failed to mention the one that has the adult demographic: www.gather.com :)
  • chebuctonian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm glad to see some people talking about the need to aggregate relationship data. It's good that they're paying attention to the fact that we like to present different profiles to different networks.
  • therealduckie, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4This phenomenon is as bad as when ***** took over all the mom and pop/artsy coffee shops in the 90's and ruined the genre. Now it's so permiated into everyday life the origins are gone. Same for anything swallowed by mass-marketing.

    Hopefully they ALL die
  • frequencyone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Thank God for the upgrade to "Social Networking 3.0". I don't know how we ever survived on the old version.
  • LordSkywalker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I do like the idea of social network sites in general. I just wish we could hurry the hell up establishing a new de-facto site to replace MySpace. I know it'll get screwed up somewhat by the marketing and advertisements, but atleast it should be clean and well coded.

    Pick a bunch of the boxes down a "Web 2.0" checklist and make that the basis. Anything like PureVolume, Digg, or any other new-age style sites would be a great template to work from.
  • everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm so glad for social networking on the Internet. now i have no reason to leave the house! I'll just stay inside all day, swapping youtube videos and uploading Nelly songs to my myspace. Human interaction? Please, i have all the customizable avatars I'll ever need.

    oh, and hive7 and secondlife are *****. they're like the runescape of the social networking world.
    • wrldpc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2you get dugg up just for the laughing man icon :)
    • Johigglesvash, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Secondlife isn't for everyone no. Its niche ability is incredible however, I've been with secondlife since mid 2003. It isn't just a normal social networking site where you link to your friends and blog about what you do all day. You actually have the ability to create a virtual personality and do pretty much whatever you want.

      Myself I have lots of fun with the scripting system and building system. There are people that have managed to get so good at building that some of the SL builds arguably look better than WoW, forget Runescape, which is software rendered in a Java virtual machine.
    • Monza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree, Johigglesvash. There's great potential in SL...a completely open ended sandbox for playing in. Part of its appeal is seeing how it will evolve.
    • madpie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The other part of its appeal is how it's incredibly boring and looks like crap.
    • everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1second life is a novel idea, but the graphics are *****. i understand it's because the majority of the items are user made, and therefor crappy in general, but it still makes for a very clunky looking game.
  • opitica, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I saw "3.0" and my head exploded.
  • ZernanToledo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1 "So what we require is a system that connects all social networks - that a user is a member of - and shares basic functionalities. This would allow users to choose a system with the features and approach that best suits them."

    A network of social networks, this has been coming for a while. The problem is that the market wouldn't settle for just one definitive 'meta' network one, multiples would spring up and you'd end up needing networks of networks of social networks.

    • warpzone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Oh my god, we're going to be the Borg.

      Won't be that bad as long as there are plenty of seven-of-nines.
  • shineofleo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yes it is a very good overview of the current situation. Personally I don't like the social net style site which is boring... :P
  • brindon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You would actually have to hold most user's families hostage to force them to use those annoying yet useless sites.

    ...and even then..
  • wrldpc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Friendster is gone. Unless they can start offering free stuff they'll never win back control.
  • gregcotten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How can all of these websites be a phenomenon? (You know the saying, if we're all special, no one is really special...)
  • ewooding, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Or people could get off their computers and go outside?
  • shertzerj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I thought this was going to be an advertisement for Coors Light. Boy was I off.
  • Ub3rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is it just me or are most social networking sites completely boring? They really don't offer anything above and beyond what you could do yourself, yet everyone loves them. I hate to sound like my parents, but I just don't get it.
  • franksands, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1haven't you heard? There's no silver bullet:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet
  • atroxodisse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Never, ever, ever, ever gonna happen. We don't need it and we don't want it. Firstly, people putting their real info on any of these sites are just asking for something bad to happen to them. Second, do you really want a bunch of internet marketing tards sharing your info all over the internet? Even if you don't give them your real info they have your email address. The spam alone is reason enough not to want this system. Who is going to maintain it? The goverment won't and shouldn't because they'd ***** it up.

    On a seperate note social networking has existed in some form since the internet was created. Whether it was on message forums, IRC or freenet. It was there. Anyone who thinks it started in the 1990s is clueless. The internet IS social networking.

    If you want to have different profiles on different systems then just do it. No one needs a system to share your useless crap.
  • hypoxia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Social networks let you track people. That's it. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you can share your flickr photos with each other or whatever. All that matters is that 10 years from now if you feel like looking up somebody, you know how to. I think Social 4.0 is going to be a minimalist return to people's pictures and their pretend social network email. Only all the networks will be aggregated and users will be able to add their friends *whether or not their friends have added themselves*. The largest easiest to use (and look at) network will win.
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