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Social Network software with a purpose

Fred Oliveira on September 21, 2005

43people 43 People is about to launch. By the same guys who’ve already delivered the great 43Things and 43Places (The Robot Co-op), this is one of the best applications of the “web 2.0″, because it connects people to people, and allows them to share little intimate details to the public, while not being “weird” about it.

Sometimes I wonder how many of the entrepreneurs working on the “next killer app” realize how much of the web 2.0 is about connecting people who are on the “edge” (of the “content publishing” world, that is) and allowing them to interact. This ability to connect people through services, transparently, is amazing, and something I personally think about a lot - and now even more, since the work I’ve been doing is all about this sort of stuff.

One concern of mine is how much social software out there packs no meaningful “social object” - you know, what connects two or more people (like photos on Flickr, podcasts on Odeo or videos on YouTube). The result is usually the same all the time - people get tired, they stop visiting or they leave. Plus, there’s the problem of not being connected to the social network all the time (you are not on, say, hi5 all the time - hopefully), eventually leading people to forget or ignore the software. The meaningfulness of the social object around which the social network revolves is extremely important. Too important to forget.


Comments on this post

Mario Bai

The keyword… keep it simple and stupid. But it seems that in the 2.0 development only the tech guys or internet junks giving points to new apps, where is the real customer? Sure they are online, and they are using Yahoo/MSN/AIM chat and their Outlook or Thunderbird to stay in contact with who ever. Now giving this fact, staying in contact through email is not the most elegant way of course, but people do… why? Email gives you the time and privacy of course, nobody behind you to be shamed for if you make a spelling mistake (like me) to get a red head if you don’t know why suddenly all kinds of graphics and sounds (Yahoo & MSN messenger) fly over your screen and yelling out of your speakers… to go through thousand and one settings to have a live talk or video chat (try to set up a web cam on your pc, 80% of just normal web surfers don’t know and don’t want to know how this all works) Flickr is nice however forgiven with tech junks talking abra cadabra and how to get your photographs in blogs… Now say yourself is that the way to go, it seems to look simple but it isn’t at all actually. My friends, family etc. (and i have lot’s of them) all wanted to stay in contact with me, I live in Bali Indonesia they live in Europe, Australia, AMerica… LEt me tell you this, after ten years not one is using Yahoo, MSN, Flickr or anything like that to stay in contact. Email is the magic word and I think actually it will stay the magic word for a long long time to come. I remember the days when people said printed magazines and news papers would dissapear… so wrong so wrong…!

Pete Cashmore

Fred,

This post has been sitting in my feedreader (marked “as new”) for ages now. I think what really interests me is that phrase “the social object”. It offers a nice insight into why some communities fade away for lack of an object (Friendster), while others succeed because of their focus on a single social object (flickr=photos, myspace=music?, del.icio.us=links). The social object is an intrinsic part of social networks, and too many people overlook it. In the case of Friendster, there’s no “there” there.

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