On Nov 26, 2007 5:38 PM, Matthew Nish-Lapidus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There was a great article about this on Bokardo a little while ago... > Joshua Porter wrote that the success of any social networking site > depends on the usefulness of that site in the absence of other users. > > In other words, "what does this site do for -me-," is the primary > concern, the social aspects are secondary. > > http://bokardo.com/archives/the-delicious-lesson/ >
Matthew, I wouldn't go that far, saying that the success of **any** social networking site depends on the usefulness of that site in the **absence** of other users. That may make sense in the article you've mentioned, because it discuss del.icio.us tagging feature, in comparison to flickr and other "social networking" (sic) sites which use tags as well. But there are some sites that doesn't have any valeu in absence of other users. Orkut is a HUGE success here in Brazil, and it's success is directly related to the presence of other users. In fact, brazilian orkut users have been using some features of that site in a very interesting way, that many times has nothing to do with it's original intention. But it is all about the social networking, about staying in touch with friends, other people, whoever... Joshua Porter article is really interest, but there's no way to generalize it to other social networking sites. Flickr and del.icio.us have other primary functions, I would say they help you organize your stuff (photos, bookmarks, whatsoever). Orkut, Facebook and Friendster are totally different. For those who say that social networking sites fall down when a fresh new one emerges, I wouldn't be sure about that...Orkut continues to increase it's presence here, although there are many other sites just like it, for a long time. Here in Brazil Facebook users are just a few, (Friendster never happened), in comparison with Orkut. And nobody can say why. Particular contexts have different users, and we should be cautions with generalizations. -- prof. mauro pinheiro universidade federal do espírito santo centro de artes depto. de desenho industrial ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
