What might we see in THE next social networking site?
Think of a name, ideas and include a picture or video if you want. The more imaginative, the better!
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M$13 Answers
1. People Mindset and Psychology of Networking
2. The Tool Mindset
Let's tackle the first one, as this is more of the change of humanity, and how do we compel humans to change their behaviors. We've seen with Twitter, that humans need to change their behavior in order to update their "status" so to speak, and this is just one of the behaviors that humans can change. However, "status" may be what it's all about, yet status can come in many forms. Below are the forms:
1. Where I am or where I was
2. What I'm doing, or what I was doing
3. How I'm feeling, or how I was feeling
4. Who or What I'm With, or Who or What I was with
5. When I'm Doing It or When I did it
Now, social networking has always been about status, yet the problem or the challenge is with the tools, and how these tools encourage its users to make a status update. Are these tools hardwired to our brains, not yet? Do we want them hardwired to our brains, built into our bodies, or anything like that? Only time will tell, yet I'm not totally thrilled about that idea, so I carry around a device that is able to put out that signal, and that device will come from my brain.
2. The Tools
At the end of the day, all of these networks are tools. I don't care what you are using, but if the tool encourages you to do something you shouldn't be doing, or isn't really making it more accessible for you to network, then why use it? If you find a better tool that would be able to combine more information, allow you to get more stuff done, and be able to connect people better, would you leave your current social networking sites to try it out? So, it's a combination of people need to change, as well as the tools.
Since you asked, what is "THE next" social networking site, and I know that I'm working on creating it, yet at the same time, I realize that with any site tools or application, there are inherent challenges. You've got to encourage the user to use the tool for the way it was meant to be used for. You realize this with Mahalo Answers as well, if a user answers a few questions, and you mark the answer as unhelpful, this user was not answering your question, so they may not be properly using the tool.
So what I believe:
Some sites do not cover everything, whereas you have some sites that focus on geolocation, and others that focus on what I was doing. Sites do not always focus on a few things in our states of being:
Social Emotions
Social Geo location
Social Gaming
Sites like Foursquare and Gowalla, or trip planning related networks such as Tripit or Dopplr are good examples of geo location. I see a strong predictor of the future in Geo Location, yet this is just one entity of what makes a social networking tool. At the end of the day, does it matter where you are, if you cannot connect with the people in your social network?
I see the future with geo location, yet I only see so much to "where I am," so there is more that needs to be told within this. The reason why this makes sense, and why a geolocation, yet there is strength in the future of the implicit Web, of bringing information to the user, from previous information. So, if we figure out you like to go to bars, the social networking tool in combination with the bar figures out a way that bar can reach out to you better, they offer you "free drinks" for becoming the most frequent visitor and so forth. This works because of the social gaming aspect, if you can be rewarded a badge or something, you will want to compete for it.
However, these services can be the antithesis to a social network, as you can say you are somewhere and really have just left. So, what I think the future of social networking is the power of now and reality, and figuring out the lineage of where people are, and saying that these people have really been together, and making this proof that you've been together in real life. If you are just friends on a social networking site, yet are not proving your togetherness in real life, then why should you be rewarded points or badges? I'm not saying social networking by any means is easy, or easy for everyone, as balancing work life and play life is not always easy.
So, my hypothesis with FreezeCrowd, the site I'm working on is that the future of social networking is trying to bridge the gap between where people say they are together online in a virtual environment with who they really are with in real life, yet what's more important is where they are in real life in a group, rather than just that they joined a virtual group online. The fact that you can join many virtual groups online stiffens your interaction in real life, yet since the Internet exists, it's my belief that people need to find a happy medium. Drawing the connection between the two takes technology, tools, and most important people changes. When I say people changes, people have to connect in real life to make a social networking site online work, opposed to just connecting virtually. People changing their methodology of the way they update, showing proof they've been together means something, and in likelihood may be able to save people time by getting more people together means something. If you had 10 close friends you can connect with in real life, and mirror that group of friends online with a visual representation, I think you would be better suited to connect with them in the future, than if you got 10 friends to join a virtual group and had them communicate in a forum, like back in Web 1.0 days. So, I foresee the future leading us to Web 2.0 to the next iteration of Web 3.0 and the implicit Web.
My Thoughts
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M$
At the same time, you will be able to tell select groups of people where you are. For example, I have a small group of friends that regularly gets together and often bumps into each other. I have another group of friends that I'm close to in spirit, but nowhere near geographically. And yet others are people I know professionally, or from my childhood.
I'd want the group I bump into regularly to see where I am, so they can choose to walk out of the coffee shop right instead of left and meet instead of miss. I wouldn't, however, want the feeds of my friends 500 miles away cluttered up; nor those of people I'm not terribly close to.
But, if one of my far-away friends was going to be in town, I'd want to notify them, too. This killer social networking site would make it very simple to add people briefly to a geolocation list, and remove them when it was no longer needed.
Numerous stories on Techcrunch and Mashable
http://mashable.com/2010/01/07/myford-touch-sync/
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M$
Our new future overlords are becoming more and more intelligent and soon they will start a site of their own to complain about humans, meet other single robots and play mindless games instead of doing useful and dangerous jobs for us.
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M$
Something about a location-based social networking seems sticky to me. Already we have seen the popularity of both these sites explode as people are now avidly competing for something so trivial as "mayorship" of their favorite restaurants. It seems silly but I really think these types of social networks are going to explode as they incorporate more game aspects. I can't wait to see what's next!
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M$
I really enjoy both Gowalla and Foursquare! Those are great iPhone apps, and my friends and I, often compete on who can be the "Mayor" of certain spots; it's quite fun. We often use apps like that to meet new people and discover new places. I think you are dead on when it comes to location-based social networking "games". It's like a MMORPG for IRL, amirite?
I think it's loads of fun, plus it gets me moving again, instead of just staring at my computer screen. The advancement of mobile computing devices means we won't *need* to be tied to our computers to get our social networking fix, and we can use our devices more as tools, than just distractions.
Yeah, definitely agree - location is becoming a big thing, but I think that the concept though may not create a new site because Twitter/Facebook are quickly rising to the challenge of this new feature for their networks. The way it is presented is everything, like I said with @easyeboy in creating if a new site is to emerge - otherwise we'll have to wait for a new feature.
Mbody, it was rumored, stood for multiple-body functions in V-space, although this in fact was not true until N-tech became perfected some 500 years later. We do know that this was a rich cultural zoom-zoom time, though, with garagatars of personal adventar snbooks written for all to enjoy for posterity that let you almost "feel" what it was like for the STORYcreator to live in that centurytime. We are grateful for this treasure trove of crystalbooks discovered stored by an eccentric plutoniumaire sensie collector from the turn of the century in an underground pyramid. If only such techno-graphy had been available when Shakespeare1 had lived!
Do we know what "new" UPsider models will come out for the new year? Security at Homeland Secret Dept. X is tight-zipped as usual. But early zube rumors point to an accelerant to last-years warp-time zoom that is rumored to reach back to the ancient human-search engine Mahalo - precursor to it all! Now THAT would be awesome! It has long been argued throughout the centuries that the Mahalo founding fathers has been misstated, although @jasoncalacanis remains the core starterUP Ffather, and she avatar constructs called @cjd and @socalsue were the ones who then actually warped Mahalo to it's next Plong level long after they became full-time staff there. If only we could be there to see that happen! To see THE post-social networking site precursor at the VERY beginning for real!
Circular Polarizing Filter Creative Commons by DeaPeaJay
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M$
You know, I could see you easily in one of these graduate fellowships at competitors for Mahalo easily, then coming to work at Mahalo and blowing everyone's socks off - or maybe they would consider funding such a fellowship for you and future founder @socalsue at a California university in the future? :)
http://digital.venturebeat.com/2010/01/08/facebook-fellowships/
Interesting question... but nah, HTML and CSS will stay dominant for the next 10 years. They are regularly updated and there's no reason to change. But I do believe CMS systems will become so user friendly that we wont have to learn HTML or CSS code.. Everyone will be building upon a CMS like wordpress or Tumblr, though I reckon some new company will appear out of no where with a wordpress-like system that's easier to use and they'll dominate the market... While I like and use wordpress, it's very difficult to modify and I reckon someone will make a much easier one or Tumblr will step up with a super easy customization feature so that you can create a tumblr account, attach it to your domain, easily change the website to look however you want, and treat it as though it's installed on your own server.
Of course! And there's me asking the question...
Mahalo, has a great team behind it and I would consider it a network of people - but socializing is very limited with some question being opened ended and the best we can do is some comment chat, refuting or adding facts. Whether Mahalo is to go sailing to a new island of chat (excluding the IRC for the moment) then we could see Mahalo taking one huge leap. I still think there needs to be some feature of LIVE ANSWERS where actual top answers are live on site ready to answer some questions. With enough tips, they'll research the best they can to answer. This will definitely hotten up the social side.
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M$
Great idea! Or maybe combine charity in with another social networking site (possibly with GeoTagging for possibly robots) and that will be a winner!
That will never happen. How do you know the person really needs it? This thing will only work in real life. The closest you'll get is by creating a facebook app and collecting donations for a foundation, not for an individual person.
I believe the next big social networking site will be all about connecting your real identity with opinions, reviews, purchases, and real time connection with all of your friends and businesses that you're interested in. While it will be real time, it's not going to mean you can contact your local hairdresser at any time you like, it just means their computer or their profile will be updated with the message you send them in real time so that if they are at the computer at the time they will see it and be able to reply.
I don't believe we'll have our location broadcasted over the internet automatically, it'll be much like foursquare where we choose to log into a certain location, and that will broadcast to our friends only. I also believe friend lists will become much more strict. Instead of some people having 5000 friends, they'll limit it down to a hundred or so, simply for privacy reasons. I've got more ideas but I'm going to build them myself so I don't want to share them. :P
All you have to do is dream about what the future is going to be like and what humans are going to want to be doing in the future.. It seems pretty obvious to me but maybe I'm incredibly wrong.
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M$
Some interesting points. Friends lists will definitely grow tighter and the idea of the avatar, I am interested in also. You say you have a current site, can you say what this is?
China and Brazil probably to be more precise. Note the example of Orkut (Google) where they evidently gave up on people from the western world and focused on India and Brazil being the two main users.
Project Natal VERY VERY interesting. It's as interesting as the iSlate and I think it is because it is a very very open user interface - gestures by hand and not a remote. The iSlate/Microsoft Courier will also open up social networking by being able to use it on a portable device. Geo-Location, yeah? Reality - yet again, I think it is more the future.
Some very good points!
I'm building a local event calendar at the moment which I hope to expand into all kinds of areas which will be useful for social networking in the future. I think Facebook will be number one for another 5 years at least. They have enough money to continue producing whatever the public thinks of, like Foursquare and Gowalla features. Facebook will do something like them soon you can guarantee. It'd be stupid for them not to, because if there's anyone that could take down facebook, it's Foursquare or Gowalla building an online social networking site to compliment their mobile social networking site. Ask yourself, what's keeping us on Facebook?? It's friends, photos and group discussions from the status updates. We're over facebook games because they're so immature and annoying, but Foursquare is making a game that everyone enjoys, right? All they need is photo albums, group discussions and enough of your friends using it and what reason have you to return to facebook?
To expand on avatars, I'm referring to the fake personality we portray online. I believe that eventually you wont be using a cartoon character of yourself here, you'll be using a real photo of yourself and your real name. Because everyone else will too and if you don't, your opinion will be inferior to theirs because you're hiding behind an avatar and they're not. I don't know about you, but I want to get rid of anonymous contributions online. Anonymous viewing is fine, but when contributing something there should be a name behind it. Imagine youtube if people used their real name. Would there be even 1% of the offensive remarks on there?
What else do the majority of people want in a social networking site? Live webcam conferences for communicating with multiple family members for a Christmas reunion. I think that feature will be in the next gen social networking site.
I think MP3s will have share buttons where you can share it with your friends and all they have to do is click a play button to stream it.
They'll also have event calendars build in, which is something I'll hopefully be a part of. Facebook and Linkedin are trying to do it, but there's just not enough exposure for event organisers yet.
I think product sharing will be big too. One day we wont need to spend money on traditional advertising for our product or service, you'll just upload your product to a social site and people will buy it, bookmark it and share the link with their network and through social online sharing every person in the world who wants to buy that product will know about it. Word of mouth will be the biggest advertising medium instead of the smallest and slowest as it is today..
Disagree with Wordpress.com - people that it would grow for ages and it hasn't. Tumblr, however is a different story - as it looks much better and it is much easier to use. Micro-blogging is the future.
And Google Chrome OS will only make the internet more used - it means that more applications will need to be available on the internet. Considerably, a better "online" office software than Google's Docs, Spreadsheet etc.
Grr I left a huge message about the HTML and CSS but it didn't show.
HTML and CSS are not going anywhere at all. They'll be around for the next 10 years for sure. They are constantly being updated and adding really cool features. The curved boxes and font shadow is awesome!
I predict that Flash is going to die off in websites but will be more popular in PDFs with the vector art. I can't see Adobe Air making much more of an impact than it already has so I think that'll die off too. Really, just ask yourself what you personally want in regards to websites. Whatever you want, they'll eventually create. Google Chrome OS will be making huge footprints soon I reckon, and we'll eventually see all office computers running off one large server that runs 100 instances of Google Chrome OS.
I think Wordpress will grow HUGE in the next 5 years, and there's a possibility that Tumblr will build something like wordpress.com mixed with wordpress.org where we have the ability to modify the code, but all the php and database code will be programmed by user friendly wizards so that anyone who has just logged onto the internet for the first time can build an advanced website in minutes.
I disagree with your prediction of Brazil being a super power online. I don't think they are in that game yet and wont be for another decade at least. Google's Orkut is just a dating site, not a social networking site, so there is no threat to social networking from Orkut.. I don't know what other sites are happening in Brazil but I can't see them making much of an impact.
China, I agree will be huge online, but they are all in-house, they don't like sharing their things with the rest of the world so you and I will never see China on the internet unless you move to China.
India will be huge because they are willing to share with the rest of the world and with their population being similar to China's, their social networking sites will grow massively and I reckon we'll see some huge Indian social networking sites become mainstream as well, considering that half of India speaks English.
But Russia, they seem to be on the ball. Instead of competing or starting their own stuff, they know the power of USA and they're going to try and partner with USA to do things together. I reckon we'll see large online companies launching their websites in USA and Russia at the same time, THEN expanding to the rest of the world. Russia has always wanted to be first at everything, right, and they know that by partnering with USA they'll always be the first in Asia. That's my theory of Russia anyway.
On this iSlate and portable newspaper laptop kinda thing, I don't think they're going to get big for a few years yet. Sure it's cool, and a gadget I'd be proud to have, but what's the real purpose for it? Everything we use now has an important purpose. iSlate, while having an apple logo, is still just a tablet, and who uses tablets these days? Remember the 7inch PMPs? Who uses them? The Crunchpad was an awesome idea - to read the news from your recliner in the lounge room, but viewing news online is not mainstream enough yet. When people start viewing their LOCAL news online, that is when these tablet computers will hit it off, because all the baby boomers will be getting them as christmas and birthday presents so they can read the local news from the recliner every morning. It'll become a morning ritual to goto the lounge room, plop yourself on the recliner and whip up today's local news on the crunchpad. Not in bed, that's a bit too lazy. Even I feel lazy checking my emails/facebook/reader from my iPhone while I'm still in bed. I'd rather get up and head to the loungeroom for a drink and then sit down on the comfortable lounge and pull out the news reading device.
These devices will also need to read PDFs like a Kindle, and they'll also need speakers to play audio books so if you're sick of holding it up and reading your PDF you can click "play audio from this point on" and it'll start playing the audio book starting at the part you stopped reading at. now THAT will be awesome :)
They'll all have some kind of connection to your telephone line where you can pay for books/audio mp3s by making a phone call or SMS using the tablet device. The phone companies will all partner with the banks to provide phone transactions for boomers who don't want to set up a wifi lan in their house.
Ooo I also think Africa will start a large online presence in 5 years. We'll see African social networking sites popping out of Nigeria with hundreds of millions of african members. They'll be all in-house, not participating with the rest of the world.
I have a local news website in the ideas stage which would be ideal for these, but I'm no where near building it until I get my local event calendar working.
I also think video game consoles will be huge for social networking. We'll all have a webcam sitting on our TV in 5 years which we use to have live video conferences with friends and family.. you saw it in that project natal video I think, where you can see eachother WHILST browsing some online shop.. seriously, where would you rather sit and socialise, on a hard upright chair in an office or on a reclining lounge chair with a 50+ inch LCD tv and a wireless keyboard/mouse??
I think next gen social networking will allow you to find new friends quicker and easier through common interests and similar purchases.
I think we will also see Indians becoming a dominant force online. Indian social network sites will become huuuuge and possibly as big as facebook. (people from India, not native americans) Indian people account for such a high percentage of doctors in the western world I hear... it wont be long before they start accounting for a lot of large company owners too.
hmmm, I can't think of anything else right now...
ooo, and this one is just a guess, but I think Russia will buy it's way into every online business in USA and they will eventually become like partners. USA and Russian online entrepreneurs will work together. It'll be like an industry alliance. While I'm on that path, I reckon Chinese people will migrate to East Russia and Russia will become half Chinese. lol, why not?
Agreed! Africa will rise incredibly fast in this decade. Especially with recent announcements such as the 2010 World Cup and probably the 2020 Olympic Games.
What about the interface? Web 2.0 relies heavily on HTML/CSS but what about things like Adobe Flash and JavaScript? There's a little, but not much. Do you think this next generation - I'd say 2.5 because 3.0 is not going to be in this decade for sure - will be more prominent?
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M$Here is a quote that talks about this site from killerstartups.com:
"Some claim that social interactions through resources like Face book and MySpace have one clear drawback, namely that people are becoming increasingly isolated in their houses and missing the “real” meaning of social interexchange. That is debatable ad infinitum, of course. But the fact remains the ones who do agree with that will maximize this website. It has the explicit mission to encourage people to socialize off-screen by meeting each other in the real world and doing things together."
People say that social networking sites are like the 2.0 of today’s modern internet, but with sites like Cribsocial.com it takes what was once 2.0 to somewhere like 3.0 or beyond. It really makes the groups and relations you make online have real intrinsic value and worth.
You can meet an online friend at a local coffee shop or take classes together at a yoga class with someone you made friends with thru the site. The social aspects of this are thru the roof.
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M$
There will be connections, agreed! But then it will be very much home based. More likely with a growing (and I don't mean in numbers, I mean size) population that people will stay at home - they may never have their relationship outside they just love each other online. Webcams and stuff...?
And LinkedIn is a more business related social networking site. But it will grow huge and like one Mahalo member said, it will change how you apply for a job. People will find YOU not you apply and they will look on your LinkedIn profile.
And lastly I must agree 100% that finding people with related interests will become more popular. Note that Match.com has a similar principle...
Agreed, CJD. I want to socialise from home, not from a pub. lol, I'm not going to pull out my mobile phone at a pub and start meeting people. How lame. 3.0 is just going to be about live real-time stuff.
I checked out the site but I don't see how it's going to become popular.
It's just a dating site (orkut) crossed with meetup.com (event listings) and it's definitely not web2.0, let alone anywhere near web3.0 or whatever that will be when it comes to existence.
Like CJD said, we're trying to get people meeting eachother online, not offline. I think in the near future someone's going to come up with a brilliant facebook and twitter app that allows you to meet strangers based on similar interests. I'd definitely use that!!! Imagine how many people on facebook have identical interests to you! You'd get along so perfectly... If I knew how to program on facebook i'd do it myself! lol
Meeting up with those people in person is not something you need an extra website for, you just need to add them as a friend and see their friends, then have a chat on facebook instant messaging, then swap numbers and have a chat and organise a meetup.
Do you use LinkedIn, because they have many meetup events and they are quite successful, but they don't have much more of a future than they do now. The growth of these meetups is dependent on the amount of meetups happening.
I welcome you to debate this and get me to see your point though because maybe I'm not understanding something about what you're saying.
True - but I think the point of social networking is to communicate when you are not out. Personally, the social network 3.0 is trying to KEEP people indoors than outdoors.
Of course 3.0 is mostly on line, but what if you wanted to meet someone you've built a relationship with on the internet similar to dating sites but instead of dating it will be business based or maybe you just moved to a new city and you would like someone to show you around from that city. You can also invite people to certain functions you might be hosting to people on the site that have the same interest. You might even have a extra ticket to a ball game and are willing to give it to someone from the site when they meet you at the game. Just check out the site before you make comments please.
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M$Take a look at www.feeyd.com
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M$I have Google Wave, but haven't been able to get enough users to really give it a good test drive, so this is speculative, but based upon some use of the product and a wish to use it in a much broader way than I've had a chance to so far.
I have a few invitations left, BTW, that no one has stepped up and requested. First come, first served.
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M$
Facebook, with all of its games and silly apps, with it's messy and unpredictable updates, needs some serious competition. It is a cluttered mess right now. That may be what people want with the next Social Media, but I think that with a program like Google Wave you can choose to have a more sophisticated yet flexible approach.
Google Wave and I heard that Microsoft Vine were to threaten Twitter and Facebook and were considered the next version of the "email" but I still think that Twitter and Facebook will create more features and the Wave and Vine still seem to be on the same trend of networks and not breaking into a "new" world.
And Twitter is worlds apart from what Wave is, I think at best they would be complimentary. Has Google bought them out yet? ;-D
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M$
@dsaldridge - Why not post a link to your article here outling some points - it might help create traffic!
Yes, photos are just one way to visually represent yourself. I think it's the most important way, as video takes longer. I think it's important to realize who is in the photo with you, and realizing that these people can connect, as if they were in a photo, then they were likely together in real life (disregarding photo editing tools). Avatars are not a real representation of you in real life, yet they could be a visual representation. I don't think they are good for social networking, as they do not bring a personal appeal back to a conversation. With regards to FreezeCrowd, I can't go into details, yet we've abandoned the countdown and have extended the launch date.
You say "visual representation" - in what context. Do you mean representing yourself as a photo (which is currently being used in the Web 2 stage) and links with your last picture - or are you thinking more an avatar?
Geo-Location seems definitely, THE future at the moment. So it is interesting to see how it will be displayed. Still, I think that the Geo-Location thing is a little bit in this Web 2/3 stage - maybe call it Web 2.5? Twitter/Facebook and other developers are creating geo-location tools right at this time, so how it is presented I believe will be where the step up is achieved.
And presumably the actual "next social networking site" might be FreezeCrowd. I'll take that on board. Though, it seems like it is launched ("launch time") - did the countdown work?
Also, sometimes what you don't see in a social networking site is the beauty of it. Not everyone sees all the backend, or what's going on with Mahalo, but I think that's also important. Sometimes there is a lot of work in areas what you don't see that would help a lot of people out. Maybe it helps you out on a little level, yet each person who adds up, it saves them time and effort in some capacities. I know this is hard to fathom, yet I figured something out, a way to connect people that is light years ahead. I wish I could explain it to the world right away, but it's kind of goes like this:
The past is history, the future's mystery, the present is a gift.
Remember that quote, as it's very important! Yes, we think in the future, but we have to realize where we are now to some extent. Social networking is such a misunderstood industry because of the previous companies in this industry made it that way, made it linear so that people could understand it, yet in reality "social" in nature is so organic. If you look at conversation flow, my comment is going below my previous comment. What if it were to float overtop the other in the Z dimension? It's hard to think, as our computing devices were made in the X and Y dimensions, but there still is a Z dimension. This site was developed in the X and Y dimension, but what if we were to figure out a way to make the Z dimension pop out?