Choosing right social networking for you (part 2)

People like social networking that all of their friends are using. Freaks, geeks and queers all invaded Friendster in the early days and they made certain that all of their friends were there. They did so organically in clusters. This was very successful, until they felt alienated from the site. There is a tipping point to get on and a tipping point to get off. Once mass departure began with a few pissed-off folks, it spiraled quickly. While the early adopters left storm-like, canceling their accounts, most users simply stopped logging in frequently because it was no longer the place where their friends were.

Friendster was beginning to get mainstream American 20/30-somethings when it got bogged down by dreadfully slow servers. Mainstreams would (and did) irritate the early adopters, but not enough to make them leave. Yet, both mainstream-ification and slowness played a role in the departure of early adopters. Mainstream-ification played a greater factor in early adopters' lack of interest in returning once the site was fixed.

The slow servers made it very difficult (if not impossible) for mainstream users to engage. Frustrated, many lost interest before they really engaged. It should be noted that slow connections are more common in foreign countries and so this did not serve as the same kind of barrier elsewhere - growth continued during the slow period in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. Because of this (and a few other factors), Friendster survived the server disaster in these regions and continued to grow into the mainstream there. And into the youth.

Mainstream American users came on because of mass media, not because of organic cluster effects. When they joined, they couldn't see anything or anyone. It was also not where all of their friends were and often they got bored before their friends arrived; there was never enough of a tipping point for many mainstream clusters.

MySpace stayed out of the media for the first two years. Their growth was completely organic, allowing for significant cluster effects. Additionally, those who heard about it but didn't have many friends there could join and still participate, still see what people were doing. They got a friend - Tom - and could wander around looking at all of the profiles. For cluster influencers, this was critical, and looking around would often motivate them to drag in their friends.

When clusters of friends are all on a social site, watercooler effects emerge. The limited amount of things people could share made this difficult on Friendster; people mostly shared profiles as cultural currency and testimonials did allow for some marking of turf and social hierarchy. Yet, on MySpace, there are a bazillion things to find deep in the nooks, allowing lots and lots to be shared. Allowing media in comments and the ability to share video/pictures via profiles enhanced this.

Testimonials on Friendster took the form of singular acknowledgments of others' existence. Fakesters started turning it into a communication space, but that practice died with the Fakesters; very few users took that on. The comments section on MySpace took the form of a performative guestbook. Whenever someone thinks of someone else, whenever they stop by, they leave a comment... They let both the owner and the owners' visitors take note of their presence. They're writing presence into being in addition to writing themselves into being. This is a very important turn and it really solidifies people's engagement in the site.