
Stop Making Social Networks, Facebook Won - twampss
http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/stop-making-social-networks-facebook-won.html
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elbrodeur
This assessment couldn't be further from what I think is the case: Keep
building social networks -- there is a huge audience of people that love to
interact with others online.

Additionally, this sentiment is contrary to what drives innovation. Nickpp
touched on this with his AltaVista comment, but giving up this early in the
game is not only stupid but is not going to happen: The market is too young
and too rich to not explore.

Facebook may be a behemoth today as Yahoo was before Google. But Google
innovated the shit out of one niche part of what Yahoo was doing and cornered
the market, later taking over most of the parts that Yahoo sacrificed search
to be good at. In the same vein, I have no doubt that there is going to be a
replacement for Facebook -- it might not be a social playground or an explicit
network, it could be an online reputation or identity platform, it could be a
standardization of personal and social data -- but Facebook, like all things,
will fade, change and eventually be considered antiquated.

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morisy
I would argue that people need to stop making _generic_ social networks. But
take a look at sites like StackExchange: It is definitely a "social network",
even though it doesn't have friend requests, only recently added photo uploads
(and only kinda), and doesn't even have a Farmville-killer. But it's
incredibly useful, highly successful, and might one day even be very
profitable.

Facebook started by billing itself as a "social utility." Focus on the latter
part while admitting the former, and you, too, can build a successful
business.

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lo_fye
That's dangerous thinking right there. I'm hoping Diaspora takes off. People
need to own & control their own info.

iPhone kills other phones now, but in 10 years an open alternative will do
better. Facebook kills other social networks now, but in 10 years an open
alternative will do better.

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cryptoz
> iPhone kills other phones now, but in 10 years an open alternative will do
> better.

Wait, really? Last I heard Android phones were way outselling iPhones. It
won't take 10 years for an open alternative to iPhone to take over, it's
already happening and will be fully complete and obvious in probably 1 year or
less.

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loup-vaillant
Beware though: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1674803>

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nickpp
Stop making search engines, AltaVista won.

~~~
rythie
Stop making mobile phones, Motorola won.

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democracy
sorry mate, but Nokia did! 150 years old and 50% market share

~~~
rythie
Yeah I considered Nokia for that comment, my thought was Motorala domainated
first, then Nokia and now Nokia are failing to compete with Apple and Android
which are likely to take over in the long term as every phone becomes a smart
phone.

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paulgerhardt
"Believe me: you can’t build the next MySpace. You may think you can, but you
can’t." [2006]

<http://mashable.com/2006/04/19/feeding-the-myspace-beast/>

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nollidge
I agree completely! I mean, it's not like anybody's ever toppled the market
leader before, or made money in a niche that the leader doesn't cater to, or
made enough of a dent to get bought out, or...

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msy
I genuinely could not disagree more.

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unclefishbits
This is nonsense. The idea that the whole world shrugged their shoulders and
gave up is nonsense. Facebook won the first round of social media... but it's
all shifting.

FB has poor architecture, it's a dinosaur and bulky,

the network isn't real [http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2010/06/21/hidden-
stream...](http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2010/06/21/hidden-streams-on-
facebook-pages-profiles-over-sharing-and-attention-curation-as-equity/)

people don't want to interact with brands... the narcissism prevents
community. It's about the "ME", when it's really about all the other nodes in
the network. [http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2010/09/01/facebook-
bran...](http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2010/09/01/facebook-brand-pages-
community-interaction-what-do-we-know/)

With 1000 friends I do market research all the time.. no one likes it, it's
broken for most everyone in some way at some point, they've burnt their
bridges endlessly... and the business model of saying

We are #1, because we are #1 is ridiculous.

Facebook has lost it's "plot" in the story of social networking. They are
doing it wrong, and people will laugh at it deeper and harder than myspace
ever got. [http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2010/09/04/have-we-lost-the-
plot...](http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2010/09/04/have-we-lost-the-plot-on-
social-networking/)

It's going to die, for sure.

But now that I see your update... well okay then. I won't.

=)

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NelsonMinar
Hey, that was my blog post. Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I'd be alarmed
for the future if folks on this forum agreed with what I was saying! FWIW I
posted an update motivated by these comments:

quick clarification in response to feedback. I'm not saying "don't compete
with Facebook", I'm saying "don't build something new where I have to enter a
new list of my acquaintances."

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DjDarkman
There are things that you can't currently do with Facebook and there are also
broken parts a of Facebook, in other words Facebook is far from perfect, so I
think we should compete with Facebook even if the whole world is already
registered on Facebook.

The other thing is: social networks come and go, I know Facebook is
different.... just like anybody else :D

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patinador
Social networks are a new inhabitant in the web, so there are chances that a
new way of interacting with people beat facebook, so keep making social
networks, but not copying old ideas.

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gkanai
Facebook is blocked in Mainland China and Vietnam, home to over 1 billion
people.

Facebook is nowhere in Japan or Korea, the two most lucrative East Asian
markets.

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bittermang
Stop making donuts. Krispy Kreme won.

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robgough
Didn't MySpace already win?

Oh wait...

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raster
Someone's a quitter. :(

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ergo98
My steam network has nothing to do with my rdio network has nothing to do with
my facebook network has nothing to do with my LinkedIn network.

Their Venn intersection is very slight.

Companies like Facebook get displaced regularly in this industry. If anything,
the network on Facebook (boy remember when Classmates was the place to be?)
becomes as much liability baggage as an asset.

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mikemol
"(boy remember when Classmates was the place to be?)"

No.

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ergo98
But there's 6 former classmates who are waiting to contact you.

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mikemol
Only because they figured out who, er...nm.

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growl
+1 M.Z.

