Enough With The Social Networks!
Mar 19 2008 
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I’ve seen at least 10 articles today about some company adding social aspects to their service or product. How many have you seen today? The urge to make services and products into social networks must stop before it gets out of hand, and believe me, it will!
Social networking has become the thing to do. However, I think some of these companies are missing a lot about social networking.
1. If you didn’t start out as a social network, don’t become one now.
If you didn’t start out as one, then there was probably a really important reason as to why, which you should revisit when you get a chance. Users can see right through this gimmick. Just because users can now see what others are doing, comment, put up a profile, aggregate, and stream 10 million things does not mean your service/product will take off anymore than it already is! Don’t hop on the bandwagon just because. Stick to what you know best.
2. When the little guy does it better, then you probably shouldn’t have done it to begin with.
I hate to see big companies try to squeeze into the market. To them I say, there’s a reason as to why we think others do it better. Seeing your friend’s Google Reader shared items fits into both this category and the first one. They added what I wouldn’t even consider a social feature (being able to see friends shared items), but services like FriendFeed and other social aggregators have improved it nicely and made it into something that Google should have done when it released the feature half-heartedly. Google you need to stop!
3. Adding to the fragmentation of discussions
Honestly, I don’t want to discuss everything on every site that I find it one. Just because I found out about something on Site A doesn’t mean I want to continue to discuss it on Site A. Maybe I’d prefer to discuss it on Site B instead. Companies who try to make the opposite happen miss the point. We’re spreading the word about you! Keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll keep coming back and taking that news elsewhere to be discussed. Then we’ll bring MORE people back.
It’s just not necessary for some sites to add social features. Sometimes, the addition of these features can also take away from why I like visiting the site in the first place. You’re only adding to an already tedious and time consuming workload and eventually users will start choosing those sites that do it better. This is why I enjoy LinkRiver so much! I can go there and do what I came to do and then leave. No comments necessary and yet, I can still be social in a unique way on and off the site. I think some of these companies should take a page from LinkRiver’s…stream (cheesy I know).
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w00t, another person who agrees with me that Google Reader’s shared items thing was crap! (You don’t mind my dropping that link, do you? I hope not…) I feel very strongly that the shared items from friends feature was implemented very incorrectly, and that Google left it in place after much resistance from the community.
I’m certainly agreeing with the vibe of this post… i do think friendfeed (the concept if nothing else) is changing the way we even think of social networking… it beats the pants of a service as a social network… it instead makes a social network out of services that cater to an exact need… if i were just now starting to build something i would likely steer clear of many of the traditional “Social” aspects. the life streaming is simply the way i predict more and more people are going to elect to socialize around “their web”. it hasn’t been addressed enough, i don’t think, as THE social network of all things, networks and non alike. i guess we gotta let people warm up to the idea that it’s even useful before we start to drop the “you’ll leave facebook for this, i kid you not” on them. ;)
I disagree. I say let the market decide. If people didn’t sign up for these services, companies wouldn’t develop them. I think the social networks have been too broad for the most part, and folks are enjoying the niche sites that pop up.
@Chris it’s becoming way too congested though and time consuming.
It may be becoming too congested, but I think what Chris is pointing out is that eventually the supply and demand will sort that out. If people want a social network for every interest, then people will develop social networks for every interest. If the market decides they’d rather have a few big players, then the niche networks will die off. But to determine the equilibrium, you have to dance on both sides of the balance first.
I think social networking as a feature, rather than a service, is the future. I think within the next few years, every site that is created will have built in social networking features. It’s just the next step in how we interact with content: first it was disengaged, then there were accounts, then feeds and comments, and now full engagement and partial “owenership.”
This, too, is congesting (“Who wants a different account for every site?”, as you point out). That’s where I think a big player like Facebook or Google will step in and try to offer a “super account” that basically just adds the new site on to your profile. No more signing up, fogetting passwords and usernames, or going to an account you haven’t been to in months and finding that your picture is way out-of-date. Everything will be centralized and pushed to the satellite sites.
I agree that it’s getting a little silly with the number of services out there, but I don’t think calling for them to “just stop it!” will really make them ignore market forces.
I thought I was the only person on the web who doesn’t care about Facebook, or any widget made for Facebook.
@Jarred I don’t expect it to slow down at all. I just wanted to complain. =P
@Bill Arneson No you’re not! I’ve blocked 70% of them. The other 30 hasn’t reached me yet.