Piczo, Commonroom, asmallworld, Wallop: Inviting New Spaces or the Onset of Social Media Fatigue?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Duke University study revealing that average Americans only have two real friends in their lives.  You’d never know it from the way social networking sites are sprouting up all over.  Following upon the trolling-for-friends models at MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Bebo, Xanga and Hi5, come the new wave of by-invitation-only sites, like Piczo, Commonroom, asmallworld, and the recent Microsoft spin-off, Wallop.  This doesn’t include the professional networking sites, like LinkedIn, Ecademy, and Ryze, or the tied-to-physical community sites like Backfence, i-neighbors, upcoming and meetup.  There’s even dogster and catster, for pet lovers.

Look, don’t get me wrong, I believe social networks are clearly a powerful new force in our world.  They help like-minded people find each other, connect and communicate.   And yes, they will play an important role in the future of shopping.  Heck, it's better than bowling alone.  But, how many look-alike communities can the market bear? Who the hell has the time to fill out that many profiles (or think of that many passwords)? Who can keep track of all those contact lists, photo albums--that many friends?   The answer is no one can.  Not in a sustained way.

No, in order to survive going forward, community sites need to brutally sharpen their focus, and bring their differences into full relief. The winners will inspire genuine enfranchisement, involvement--citizenship.  The losers will become digital ghost towns.  And, maybe the new focus is not on raw membership numbers. Quality, not quantity might make the difference.  An exclusive site of 500 millionaires surely might be more attractive to some advertisers than a grab bag of one million students.  So the challenge ahead is to summon the courage to specialize, and not be everything to everyone. Otherwise, expect to see some social media fatigue and burnout set in.

In that case, I propose something completely different.  I call it myownpond.com.  Myownpond will be a place where you can retreat, far from the madding crowd and, like Henry David Thoreau, sit and think and be alone.  A brief, welcome respite from the noise, clamor and demand for your attention.  No slide shows, no instant messages, no videos, no cute widgets.  A little Zen garden, a haiku or two, the sound of one hand clapping.  Minimal graphics, maybe none.  Perhaps a couple of small ads.  Text only. Small print. What a concept, huh?  Say it with me now: a table for one please!

Comments

[Naresh Sharma]

Please send me invitation of asmallworld I liked too much my Id is king.naresh90@gmail.com . thank you