First off, I very well agree with you about new social media-aware platforms. They are much better than simple applications and are basically the new evolution of the web. Because social media-aware platforms, the web is being brought to life because more features on the net will mean that people will shift more of their real life’s time to the virtual world. Social media-aware platforms, however, are only as good depending on how they are use. We can use Me.com SNAPP for example, but I will talk more about that later on in the comment.
Let’s take Mozilla for example. Like platforms for the social media, its platforms or new features are called “add-ins” and they are basically just new features developers made to enhance Mozilla. However, hardly anyone use the add-ins, not to mention know about them, except for other competing developers. So like money, power, knowledge, and social media-aware platforms, how well they are use define how effective they are.
Now let’s talk about Me.com SNAPP. As wonderful as it is, acting as a brand new platform that offers users a whole new experience, but at the same time it has a negative impact on Me.com. Let’s first talk about the positive effect. By giving users their own social networking site, users can develop their own group to create a sense of belonging and identity. Using SNAPP on the main page, however, will hurt Me.com more than it will help. Firstly, users are divided the moment they join a social networking community on Me.com. This division lowers users’ way of interacting with other users out of their group. The member will feel confined within their own social networking community. Even though every member that joins a social networking community on Me.com will be part of Me.com network, the users focus are divided among the many sites and their time spent are also divided.
However, SNAPP does have a situation in which it can shine extremely bright. This situation can basically revolutionized Myspace so that Myspace can increase its users activity level on Myspace by 10-fold. So the following information, coming from my ideas, can be very profitable if Myspace get their hands on this. You might even want to save this comment elsewhere and delete this one here to prevent others from reading it. I would like to side track to a story in order for you to understand my point.
Long ago when Findapix came out, users poured in by the thousands. It was one of the first sites that allow users to share and brag about their pictures. It became popular overnight through word of mouth. Users were both curious and they just love looking at other people’s pictures. Only a few months later Findapix began to die out because users had nothing else to do but check out pictures and short profiles. Unfortunately at that time, getting pictures online was hard, so therefore there weren’t that many pictures to check out. This added to the already slow death of Findapix.
After Findapix came Friendster, and improved version of Findapix that allows users to add friends, get connected, make new friends, and most importantly is an expanded profile with extra information. Friendster died out because the users had nothing else to do on there, and worst, users can’t make their profile better with html because Friendster restricted them. At this rate, Friendster killed itself. Finally came Myspace which is the improved version of Friendster. Friendster became dead because it was useless and Myspace gain users because they offer what the users want, the ability to design their own profile.
Now Myspace along with its other great features, have a small feature that can be seen as equivalent to Findapix and Friendster. At first attractive, but soon died out. This feature on Myspace is the group feature. It simply allows the users to create their own group, and then the moderator can invite Myspace members to join. People just love joining the group; it gives a sense of belonging and identity. However, over time no one care anymore about the group feature because it sucks. The group only has a forum where people can post messages (which no one reads anyways) and a list of their members.
The group feature on Myspace is useless and dead, and since this feature is equivalent to Findapix and Friendster that died out, now here comes something that is equivalent to the Myspace site that took over the other two sites. Yes, this is where SNAPP shine brightly. Let’s say for example if Myspace acquire SNAPP, or that Myspace acquire a platform that allows users to create and “design” their own group, this is how Myspace would increase their users’ activity 10-fold. With such a platform, users of Myspace can design their own group or social networking community, and play around with it, which is why users love Myspace in the first place because they can design and play with their profiles.
By then, users would be so attracted to the ability to design their own group; thousands of groups would be created overnight. This ability of a social networking community within a social networking site will allow users to interact, and have fun, and it is so attractive that all users mesmerize by it would be on it for many hours, designing over and over; and that is how SNAPP can increase users’ activity 10-fold. If use properly, by being just a powerful platform for users to make groups, SNAPP would be ultimately successful, but if use on the main page, it would hurt the site through division. So if Me.com were to integrate SNAPP well, Me.com should focus on being a social networking site only like Myspace, then put a tab on top for groups. And when users make groups, they would be more attracted to it due to SNAPP.
Let’s talk about word of mouth. Though advertisements are successful, social networking sites have made word of mouth much more successful than advertisements. Back in the old days, Forums were the key for word of mouth; though not very effective. Users would add links on their thread advertising about a certain site. I will not go into details as to why forums are a bad place for word of mouth, there are just so many. Now the good thing was, other users would be curious about the links and they would check on them. Now a day, Myspace is equivalent to a neo-forum, where users can post links from their profile and other users would be curious and click on them.
Let’s take Facebook and Photobucket, an online pictures hosting site, for example. After Myspace was well known, Facebook gave users the feature to make badges. Badges are just pictures that have the user’s info, but very brief, and a link back to Facebook. For the user, it’s just another way of saying ”look I have another cool account,” and for Facebook, it’s a form of word of mouth. The user’s friends get curious, they click on it, and soon it spreads like wild fire when everyone starts having their own badges on their profile. As for Photobucket, when users hack MySpace with their own html design, they needed a place to host their pictures. Soon, their friends want to display pictures on their profile as well. And all the pictures hosted would link back to Photobucket. If it wasn’t for Myspace, Photobucket would not be as well known. So, Myspace acted as a simple application, and Photobucket was like a side feature, somewhat equivalent to a new platform. If the platform doesn’t serve the right purpose, it is useless because it won’t spread well through word of mouth. Secondly, a platform is only as good when it becomes an integration, rather than standing on its own, like Facebook F8.
Me.com should give users the feature to make badges so word of mouth will carry me.com to the top of Alexa. And just as mentioned earlier about how to put SNAPP to good use and make it shine, as an integration it will be stronger rather than standing on its own. It shouldn’t be the main feature of the site, but rather Me.com should focus on being a social networking site and have a badge to depend on word of mouth, and have SNAPP be a side feature, a social network platform integrated.
Now let’s talk about social networking site designs. If Me.com were to be a strong social networking site, or any social networking site that wants to be strong, they would have to focus on making their site better than Myspace. Here are some of my ideas. First off, I would have to side track again. Lots of users on Myspace, practically 90% do not know how to design their own site, particularly the older people. This just happens to be one of MySpace’s weaknesses. Because of this, it creates a division, again, division are always bad if use improperly.
Users are divided into those that know-how and those that don’t. The don’t will at first ask the know-how to help them design their site, but in time the don’t will become annoyed or lazy and the don’t will not use Myspace as much because they are jealous of the know-how; this creates a gap. In Facebook however, everyone’s profile are simplistic and the same, and they have the basic features for everyone; there is no gap. But also because of that reason, it keeps away the know-how on Facebook, particularly teens. Back then the don’t-know just ignore their profile and just want to keep it in order to stay in touch with friends. Then came Facebook and all the don’t-know were enticed by its features. So Myspace and Facebook do not reach out to all the possible audiences. Myspace have particularly young, know-how, likes-to-edit-and-design-their-profile teens, while Facebook have older, lazy-to-design, like-simple-stuff college students. So a good social networking site would want to satisfy both of those audiences. Now let’s talk about the easy button and templates.
Easy button.
Let’s say when a user first come to Myspace, they would be really confuse. Back then MySpace has very little features, so catching on was easy. Now with so many features, new users don’t know where to start. Therefore, a good social networking site should be like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint; it should have a wizard that guides the user. On the main page, besides all the features and a login section for advance users, there should be an adequate section that basically says “first time here?” or something like that. When users click on it they will have a wizard that guides them through each step slowly. However, there should be a skip button because not everyone functions the same. Ah-ha, that’s the key to a good social networking site, because not everyone is the same, more choices should be given. Choices are good.

Also, when users have a Myspace account and a Facebook, not to mention 100’s of other social networking sites, users hesitate to create another profile on another social networking site. Simply because users don’t want to start from scratch again, designing a new profile; which requires them to learn about the new site and all. That is why there is the “first time user” section; it’s good for both new users to social networking site as well as advance users who are beginning anew.
Now let’s talk templates. Yahoo greatest strength is their templates, just like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. Templates of profiles give users the ability to explore, play with, and quickly design their site. This is attractive to lazy people, and is good for getting new advance members who are too lazy to start over. At the same time though, the option to use their own html should still be available. Once advance users are attracted to the site, they will want to let go of the templates and design their own profile like on Myspace. Now we have the users hooked.
Yahoo’s avatar, a small icon on the yahoo messenger allows people to use their own pictures or design their own, was really fun at first. This is the same with Yahoo 360, simple because both have templates. Yahoo biggest mistake is laziness. They already have users attracted to the templates, and play around with them, but instead yahoo just stopped there. Success is a journey, not a destination. If Yahoo came out with even more templates, they would have the users hook even more, and that’s how World of Warcraft works, an online massive multiplayer game from Blizzard, that always come out with new templates to keep their 150M users hook.
Like success is a journey, new stuff should always be added to keep users hook, like social media-aware platforms, and should not come to a halt, or an end. So a good social networking site should have lots of templates. Templates given to users are like toys given to a kid for free.
If you’re interested in hearing more of my ideas, please contact me at mikedo1026@yahoo.com
-Mike Do

Good post,

Jim Forbes
from s small mountaintop in Escondido, CA