Online social networks | Everywhere and nowhere | Economist.com

Interesting piece on the value of social networks... The Economist, in short, says...

So it is entirely conceivable that social networking, like web-mail, will never make oodles of money. That, however, in no way detracts from its enormous utility. Social networking has made explicit the connections between people, so that a thriving ecosystem of small programs can exploit this “social graph” to enable friends to interact via games, greetings, video clips and so on...

... The problem with today's social networks is that they are often closed to the outside web. The big networks have decided to be “open” toward independent programmers, to encourage them to write fun new software for them. But they are reluctant to become equally open towards their users, because the networks' lofty valuations depend on maximising their page views—so they maintain a tight grip on their users' information, to ensure that they keep coming back. As a result, avid internet users often maintain separate accounts on several social networks, instant-messaging services, photo-sharing and blogging sites, and usually cannot even send simple messages from one to the other. They must invite the same friends to each service separately. It is a drag.

 

Online social networks | Everywhere and nowhere | Economist.com

Comments

[Tessa Rudd]

I argue that social networking not only offers enormous utility at present, as social networks continue to evolve in terms of finding a happy medium between user privacy issues and effective, thereby open/public, web networking, there will be no stopping the growth of the social media terrain. I predict major consolidations between “top” social networks; allowing users to generate a “master” profile, becoming one’s succinct web identity, and enabling greater networking reach. For example, a user could tailor their social media experience by joining a single social network, that offers networking and access to user opinions in categories relevant to the web user’s life, allowing for an individualized social media platforms. And for internet marketers, these mega social networks will mean more access to more acute demographic segments to target brand marketing and behavioral marketing strategies. Yummmm.

[Search Engine Optimization Journal]

Very true..the aggregators have made it easier to combine different networks but there will never quite be a fully open platform as so many of these networks have put so much separate work into their own... a happy medium would be nice.