The Social Network Identity Crisis
Popular social networks, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter seem to think that they would be better if they more like one of the other social networks. Instead, they really should follow the advice of Popeye whose motto was “I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam.”
LinkedIn: LinkedIn has developed a case of Facebook envy. Each person’s page now has a Facebook-like status box at the top asking “What are you working on now?”. I can’t recall anyone actually using this box (other than reposts from Twitter or Facebook).
Attaching a social element to LinkedIn is the equivalent of a three piece suit with a backwards baseball cap. People use LinkedIn because it is all business. This means there is no risk of an embarrassing photo turning up in a search by a potential employer or customer.
Facebook: Facebook is turning itself into Twitter with pictures. A person’s home page is now dominated by Twitter-like status updates, accompanied by photos and attachments. Welcome to the slide show from Hell. Facebook now puts pictures of kids, pets, and vacations front and center on a daily basis. As much I like keeping up with friends and family, I prefer the ability to decide when and if I want to see another cute cat picture or a 2×3 picture of someone’s dinner.
Once popular Facebook applications have been moved to the four corners of the site. Once popular applications like Superpoke (thowing sheep!) , Funwall and “Cities I Have Visited” now are the Web 2.0 equivalents of Golden Oldies that evoke nostalgia for a bygone era. While many of these applications were time wasters, Facebook is draining the social part that makes it unique.
People who are power status updaters eventualy move to Twitterand and make Facebook a secondary source via an application that posts their tweets on Facebook. Take a look at your Facebook news stream and you will likely see many standard Twitter abbreviations and hashtags. More and more, Facebook is making it seem like all of the action is on Twitter.
Twitter: Twitter’s identity crisis revolves around what is wants to be when it grows up. Twitter still does not have a viable revenue model. In a recent blog post, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that it is looking at account authentication, management tools, and discovery mechanisms. Twitter has done some preliminary experiments with advertising on user’s profile page.
But I think that they will look to follow Google and monetize on search. By virtue of Twitter posts mostly being public, a company can search Twitter to find out what people are saying about them, their competitors, and the hot issues in the markets in near real-time. Twitter can derive revenue from selling ads on search pages, premium search tools, or making a deal with with one of the large search companies.
Sticking to short communications in real time and monetizing like Google should be a personality that wears well for Twitter.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=40e35be2-3b10-482f-a4e4-d09d9cba8b0b)
Last 3 posts by Radler
- 3 Defining Quotes From GreenBeat 2009 - December 9th, 2009
- A Social Media Fractured Fairy Tale - July 9th, 2009
- Live from the Archives - July 2nd, 2009
Tags: Blogging, facebook, LinkedIn, Online Communities, social media, Social network, Twitter, Web 2.0
June 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am
+1.
From a professional contact viewpoint, Facebook is far less useful than LinkedIn. (now that LinkedIn has discussion groups
For monitoring the world and what’s happening in the industry, Twitter is the most useful — efficient to scan, and if you follow the right people, quality timely content links are plentiful. Tweetdeck and Twendz help sort the spew.
Facebook is useful for keeping track of who you know as friends, but since everything on the Internet is public to the world, there is a limit to what can be discussed. Defacto rules of etiquette are already evolving: Milestones, moments of personal joy and pain are OK. Controversial topics (religion, politics, embarassing personal behavior) are not, except when world events become part of public discourse.
Make no mistake, the interactive web is a much richer, more transparent place. The purity of the original business models makes these tools great.
Mashing them can optionally (and should optimally) be done somewhere else.
Now if only we had a login scheme free of the endless digital baptism routine to make visiting all these places easy…
June 12th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Great points. With respect to Facebook and LinkedIn for business, I think that they both have value. LinkedIn is more transactional. Facebook is about developing deeper relationships with certain people. So you don’t necessarily see the immediate cause and effect.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I don’t think a platform loses its identity by copying the best features of another platform. After all, not everyone uses all the platforms–and why not give people a platform that meets all their communication needs?
June 21st, 2009 at 11:41 pm
[...] about LinkedIn’s attempts to be like Facebook, which thankfully didn’t develop much. This article compares LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and their overlap. Friendfeed is another unique character [...]