Social Network Burnout Coming
SF Gate has an article today about burnout on social networks. It's totally natural: there's no way that people are going to continue to keep so many profiles going on so many different networks. There's a quote in the article by the guy who runs Dogster (that would be the social network for dogs):
How's that for an inherently non-nonsensical quote. Overhyped, but underestimated? That means that everyone is talking like mad about social networks, but...not quite enough? I don't buy that, at all. Clearly, the guy operating in a niche wants to believe (has to believe) that the market will continue to expand to fill in every little crevice. Or, maybe just that News Corp will expand to fill in/buy every little crevice.
This article is pointing out the obvious, but doing so pretty cleverly, by focusing on a handful of burnt-out consumers: we're bound to see a lot of contraction in social networks very, very soon. Social networks are certainly bound to become core to the online experience, like email. But, like email, there's reason to have only 2 addresses for 99% of people.
"I think it's been both overhyped and underestimated," Dogster's Rheingold said. Although some lofty expectations about how big of a business it could become won't pan out, "in the end it is going to be so much bigger than what people are seeing now."
How's that for an inherently non-nonsensical quote. Overhyped, but underestimated? That means that everyone is talking like mad about social networks, but...not quite enough? I don't buy that, at all. Clearly, the guy operating in a niche wants to believe (has to believe) that the market will continue to expand to fill in every little crevice. Or, maybe just that News Corp will expand to fill in/buy every little crevice.
This article is pointing out the obvious, but doing so pretty cleverly, by focusing on a handful of burnt-out consumers: we're bound to see a lot of contraction in social networks very, very soon. Social networks are certainly bound to become core to the online experience, like email. But, like email, there's reason to have only 2 addresses for 99% of people.
posted by Gary Stein at 10:24 AM
2 Comments:
Gary,
Don't know if you read Compete Inc's paper on Social Commerce - http://www.compete.com/FileDownload/spark_scommerce_1010.pdf - but they touch on the topic of "Social Saturation" aka, the limit to how many Social Networks one can participate in: "The second challenge facing marketers is a more recent phenomenon — social saturation. While social networking sites continue to grow, online socialites are reaching the limit of how many online communities they want to participate in. The average online socialite currently frequents three social networking sites; when polled, these same socialites stated they would consider participation in up to four communities."
Guess that didn't come out. her is the link
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