Another anecdote (note- I no longer have stock in Gather) - Gather takes it's advertising revenue and revenue from allowing companies to set up groups around their products - and turns around and pays people for their contributions to the SN - you earn points by connecting, publishing, and commenting - which can be redeemed for gift cards to borders/home depot, etc.... if you generate a min number of points/month - you can earn cash. My mom (blogging about 3 hours a day), gets about $150-$250/month in gift cards. So different SNAs need to really find out what value they are offering to users/members. MySpace obviously allows you to stalk children, Facebook allows you to watch your connections Twitter (and stalk your ex-bf/gf), LinkedIn allows you to keep track of all your business connections, but my real questions is for the 300+ other me-2 SNAs that don't offer anything unique, or anything at all - and expect to generate income from eyeballs and stickiness without offering a compelling reason to be sticky....
On Jan 31, 2008 11:52 AM, Todd Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I wonder about the extent to which the major social network sites realize > they are in the entertainment business. As such, their stickiness is based > on novelty, and has an inherent ceiling effect since there is only so much > time to devote to entertainment. As the novelty wears off, and there is no > answer to the "now what" question, people will start spending their time > elsewhere. > > It's interesting that the sites seem to have hitched their continued > novelty > to the 3rd party app bandwagon. Contrast that with another major > entertainment platform - game consoles - where the platform providers are > also major contributors of novelty (i.e. new games) to help ensure that > people stick around. > > There is also another alternative which Will pointed out - get out of the > entertainment business and provide a different kind of value. There is a > lot > of power locked up in social networks, it's just not being captured right > now. Facebook at least seems to realize this and thus is moving in the > platform direction, it's just a matter of whether the platform is > structured > in a way that allows for value extraction. > ________________________________________________________________ > *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 > -- ~ will "No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it." Alan Cooper - "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems" ------------------------------------------------------- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________ *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
