I worked at Google in 2005 and briefly on the Orkut team. I encountered an environment that viewed social networking as a frivolous form of entertainment rather than a real utility, and I'm pretty sure this viewpoint was shared all the way up the chain of command to the founders.
At that time, hardly anyone at Google actually used Facebook, so they just didn't understand what people were getting out of social networking products. Incredibly, many people on the Orkut team did not use their own product (let alone Facebook) outside of work. By contrast, everyone I know who worked at Facebook wa
I worked at Google in 2005 and briefly on the Orkut team. I encountered an environment that viewed social networking as a frivolous form of entertainment rather than a real utility, and I'm pretty sure this viewpoint was shared all the way up the chain of command to the founders.
At that time, hardly anyone at Google actually used Facebook, so they just didn't understand what people were getting out of social networking products. Incredibly, many people on the Orkut team did not use their own product (let alone Facebook) outside of work. By contrast, everyone I know who worked at Facebook was a passionate user of that product.
Ultimately, I believe Google didn't succeed at social networking because of this widespread misunderstanding of the value in social networking products.
It's hard to add to all that has been said, but there are two angles that I haven't seen mentionned in the way I saw it:
- visibility of contacts was and still is problematic;
- you needed a seeding core to make sense of the articulated social network (and even now, this part isn't so obvious).
I started my PhD '05 inspired by a local me-too that had failed by then. Anyone to whom I tried to explain the idea of an SNS then looked at me puzzled: the idea to use your contact list (be it e-mail or phone), define groups, even send massive messages like twitter allowed later was relevant (however a bit
It's hard to add to all that has been said, but there are two angles that I haven't seen mentionned in the way I saw it:
- visibility of contacts was and still is problematic;
- you needed a seeding core to make sense of the articulated social network (and even now, this part isn't so obvious).
I started my PhD '05 inspired by a local me-too that had failed by then. Anyone to whom I tried to explain the idea of an SNS then looked at me puzzled: the idea to use your contact list (be it e-mail or phone), define groups, even send massive messages like twitter allowed later was relevant (however a bit tedious and maybe formal: people used mailing list a lot, either tedious webmaster-controlled ones, or copied the CC lists, annoying most in the process) but to set this all up on a website, that was bizarre. People were OK when Gmail was able to guess who could be the other people you wanted to write based on your own sending history, but they were very uncomfortable with considering second-order friends (that appeared on massive e-mails) as possible distant contacts: sure, they could be, but in some cases they weren't and those were usually touchy — up until now, that proved to be a problem with Buzz.
To this day, Facebook (and MySpace) gets away with it by making this list hard to explore, and has favored suggestions of friends with many multiple contacts instead. In that sense, the academic definition of an SNS given by boyd & Ellison is imperfect: the social graph isn't and shouldn't be fully explorable—but this was needed to make the service so integrated with the actual social conversation. This contradiction was lifted by starting from a tight set of prospects:
Having a core of users, large enough not to all know each other, but coherent enough to have something to share, separate from personal conversations, that was rare. The first SNS that I saw was not targeted a priori, but ended up with the local equivalent of preppies: people trained since birth to have an exclusive, optimised social life. They were comfortable enough with vanity to mock the formality and the incentives it gave — “friend whoring”, and another feature that I never saw elsewhere: a compulsive closed typology of connection, both normed and typed. Extensions from such cores always changed the experience dramatically, forcing people to complain about adjusting or filtering content (until now, when Facebook turns viral in a country, people switch from a tool to see what is happening abroad to a tool that most of their close friends use daily) but they bring along sets of behavioral rules, enforcement mechanism and folklore, all carried enough users to continue through.
Google and Hotmail had the means to do it, I can show you papers about IM presented as social graphs; what changed Facebook was the publicity of friends, because they emerged from a context where “Are you friends with?” is a essential quesiton (to get an introduction to a potential romantic partner, in that case). You could have had something similar with professionals, and you had, with LinkedIn, but that was a sealed context, hard to extend from — while students beFriended colleagues and family once out of college, spreading the idea that there are elements you can share without caring who sees them or not.
Noticing how transformational this was, and suggesting the NewsFeed to empower this was however unique, visionary and demanded both the company and context where to do it, and the perfect timing (just after a the most dramatic opening to “anyone”).
Trying all that was and is still an exercise in crowd psychology, and could only be achieved by a geek who'd also have a deep interest in human psyche — an uncommon, although far from unique, profile. Because those are now encouraged and trained, expect far more Facebook-like experiments, some of which will be successful, probably relying on Facebook Open API, and certainly relying on expectations about Facebook.
Another vote for "too much baggage." Let's suppose you are a public company with a product that brings in 1 billion in revenue per year. Would you rather spend your time on a low-risk project that will likely yield a 2% increase in your current revenue, or would you rather spend your time on a high-risk project that most likely will make nothing, has a small chance of hitting $20MM in revenue, and
Another vote for "too much baggage." Let's suppose you are a public company with a product that brings in 1 billion in revenue per year. Would you rather spend your time on a low-risk project that will likely yield a 2% increase in your current revenue, or would you rather spend your time on a high-risk project that most likely will make nothing, has a small chance of hitting $20MM in revenue, and a vanishingly smaller chance of really breaking out to the next big thing?
Of course, big companies can and do expand into areas outside their original core. Google did Android. Microsoft ...
Social networking is an example of creative destruction, a revolution. Startups create revolutions, not major companies. Look at the 3 you name, who in their time were total game changers; MSFT changed OS's and marketed it better than Apple in the early days; Yahoo was a simple directory, really the first form of search, and Google of course reinvented search when all thought it was done, and each has 2 names associated with its startup; Bill and Paul, Jerry and David, and Sergey and Larry - not corporate divisions.
There are very few companies who change the game more than once, Apple bein
Social networking is an example of creative destruction, a revolution. Startups create revolutions, not major companies. Look at the 3 you name, who in their time were total game changers; MSFT changed OS's and marketed it better than Apple in the early days; Yahoo was a simple directory, really the first form of search, and Google of course reinvented search when all thought it was done, and each has 2 names associated with its startup; Bill and Paul, Jerry and David, and Sergey and Larry - not corporate divisions.
There are very few companies who change the game more than once, Apple being one of the few examples. Because major companies, as stated above, focus on what they do best. Revolutions happen with startups, someone with an idea or a dream that doesn't have the limitations of getting fired if it won't work, or needs to scale to amazing revenue quickly to justify ROI.
Startups can try out ideas so quickly and fail without losing face, driven by small, closely knit teams. Social networking had little proof of concept and few knew whether it would succeed. Friendster had the early lead, but dropped because it was too slow. MySpace took over with a simple platform and focused on ads, ruining its UI and user base because ads haven't proved a great way to fund social networking, with Facebook being the possible exception, though the jury is still out.
And entrepreneurs are the ones who have the ideas, and they are not looking for jobs inside a major company, because employment rarely encourages entrerpreneurship.
While it may seem like all tech companies are entrepreneurial, it's rare that a corporate culture could support the risk, inventiveness, and quick creativity it takes to create a revolution like social networking. Big companies don't drive change, they keep the changes they enacted moving along and growing.
Major companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have faced several challenges in their attempts to create successful social networking platforms. Here are some key reasons:
- Late Entry: By the time these companies launched their social networks, platforms like Facebook and Twitter had already established a strong user base and brand loyalty. Competing against entrenched players is difficult, especially when they have a head start in user engagement and community building.
- Understanding User Needs: Social networking is deeply tied to user behavior and cultural trends. Companies like Google and M
Major companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have faced several challenges in their attempts to create successful social networking platforms. Here are some key reasons:
- Late Entry: By the time these companies launched their social networks, platforms like Facebook and Twitter had already established a strong user base and brand loyalty. Competing against entrenched players is difficult, especially when they have a head start in user engagement and community building.
- Understanding User Needs: Social networking is deeply tied to user behavior and cultural trends. Companies like Google and Microsoft often approached social networking from a tech-centric perspective, focusing on features rather than the social dynamics that drive user engagement. They underestimated the importance of community and user experience.
- Integration Challenges: For companies with diverse product ecosystems (like Microsoft and Google), integrating social features into existing services can lead to confusion and a lack of focus. Users may not want social features mixed in with productivity tools, which can dilute the purpose of both.
- Privacy Concerns: Users are increasingly concerned about privacy and data security. Companies with a history of data controversies may struggle to gain trust in a social networking context. For instance, Google+ faced skepticism due to concerns about how Google handled user data.
- Monetization Models: The monetization strategies for social networks can differ significantly from other tech products. Companies may have struggled to find a balance between user engagement and revenue generation, leading to platforms that either failed to attract users or became overly commercialized.
- Cultural Fit: Social networks thrive on community and cultural resonance. Platforms like Facebook succeeded because they tapped into specific social needs and behaviors. Companies like Yahoo and Microsoft may not have aligned their platforms with the cultural dynamics that drive social networking.
- Brand Identity: The brand identity of a company can influence user adoption. Users may associate companies like Google or Microsoft with productivity and tools rather than social interaction, making it harder for their social platforms to gain traction.
While Google+ and Microsoft’s efforts with platforms like Yammer and LinkedIn (which is more professional-oriented) had some success, they ultimately did not replicate the widespread adoption of networks like Facebook or Instagram.
So, you think you’ve drafted a tweet, an email, a short story, or even a novel. These are different forms of communication, but the process of bringing them to fruition has a necessary, sometimes overlooked step: editing! Unless you’re a professional writer, it’s unlikely that you have an editor who can review your writing regularly. Here are some tips to help you review your own work.
- Give your writing some space. Have you ever felt a mix of pure relief and joy when you’ve finished a draft of something? Don’t downplay that feeling and the ability to walk away from your work before you start ed
So, you think you’ve drafted a tweet, an email, a short story, or even a novel. These are different forms of communication, but the process of bringing them to fruition has a necessary, sometimes overlooked step: editing! Unless you’re a professional writer, it’s unlikely that you have an editor who can review your writing regularly. Here are some tips to help you review your own work.
- Give your writing some space. Have you ever felt a mix of pure relief and joy when you’ve finished a draft of something? Don’t downplay that feeling and the ability to walk away from your work before you start editing it. You may need minutes, hours, or days, but once you sit back down with what you originally had on the page, you’ll have the thrill of looking at it with fresh eyes. You’ll notice errors you may not have seen the first time. You’ll come to new realizations about its overall tone and structure. If it’s a text or email, maybe you only need a few minutes away from it. If it’s a story or essay, perhaps you’ll need longer. Regardless of what type of work it is, it will help your writing tremendously.
- Don’t use overachieving synonyms. Looking at your work for the second, third, or fourth time around may inspire you to spice up your language with longer, more uncommon words. There’s nothing wrong with having a thesaurus nearby, but try to limit the repetition of long, pretentious-feeling words so your work flows well and doesn’t feel too bogged down. At the end of the day, you want it to feel true to you and the message you’re conveying.
- Remember who the reader is. Don’t forget your own voice as the writer—but don’t forget who your reader is. Many writers get too close to their work; editing is a chance to try to get out of your own head. Who is your ideal reader? What do you want them to take away from the writing? It’s a unique time to step in their shoes, to make sure your communication is as effective as you’d like it to be.
- Kill your darlings. Don’t be scared to remove chunks of your work, even if it feels precious to you. If it’s a passage that’s really tough to part with, try saving it somewhere else, so you can return to it later in your piece or for another work.
- Use Grammarly. Last but not least, Grammarly has countless resources for editing your work. Our writing assistant helps you find areas of your writing that are unclear or too wordy, as well as help you find mistakes you might not have caught.
Editing may feel tedious, but it’s just as important as writing itself. For an extra pair of editing eyes on everything you write, download the free Grammarly for Windows and Mac today.
Since I haven't seen a response from anyone about Yahoo!'s social networking platforms (yes plural), I thought I'd add some notes.
I worked at Yahoo! from 2004 to 2011. At the start I worked on a platform called yblogs. It was an internal product, but ended up being the back end for a large number of disconnected social networking platforms. But let's step back a bit.
Back in the mid-90's, there were many many options for free website hosting. Geocities was one of them. With its concept of cities/neighbourhoods, website owners could put their sites into locations that had some kind of meani
Since I haven't seen a response from anyone about Yahoo!'s social networking platforms (yes plural), I thought I'd add some notes.
I worked at Yahoo! from 2004 to 2011. At the start I worked on a platform called yblogs. It was an internal product, but ended up being the back end for a large number of disconnected social networking platforms. But let's step back a bit.
Back in the mid-90's, there were many many options for free website hosting. Geocities was one of them. With its concept of cities/neighbourhoods, website owners could put their sites into locations that had some kind of meaning to them. In 1999, Yahoo! bought Geocities, at the time the 3rd most visited website in the world, which along with guestbooks and a virtual currency became Yahoo's social network number 1. [GeoCities]
In 1999, a company called egroups caught our eye to start a discussion list for our classmates. A year later, Yahoo! bought egroups and renamed it Yahoo! Groups. Yahoo! Groups was one of the largest collection of private and public discussion lists around, handling more than a billion messages a month at the time of acquisition. Yahoo's social network number 2. [eGroups]
If Yahoo! had seen the opportunity at the time, they could have merged the two services, but this was something that rarely happened back in the day. Apart from moving everything to FreeBSD (if they weren't already) and the common Yahoo! login, most services were left unchanged.
Over time, there appeared Yahoo! Autos, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Message Boards, and a few other "platforms", where users could write, rate, review and +1 articles and comments. All of these platforms did more or less the same thing, but were completely different on the back end. They weren't even written in the same programming language with implementations running from Hf2K to C.
International sites were building their own platforms too. Yahoo! Korea built the Y! Korea blogs in PHP, and that's where the yblog platform came from. The data storage and manipulation layer originally written in PHP was rewritten in C++ with PHP extensions. This was mainly to handle scale, and implement database "sharding", federation, and the like. This was 2004.
The various ratings and reviews platforms, and the Message Boards were then merged into using the common yblog platform. Then came Mingle. An attempt to build a true social network, using the same yblog platform, but without pulling in any of the users from the other platforms. Mingle was renamed Yahoo! 360. This was 2005. [Yahoo! 360°]
Yahoo! 360 didn't go too far because Yahoo! didn't get the users from all the other platforms it had. It did have some sort of integration with the other platforms, but I think it just wasn't enough, and was probably too late. At this point loyal users of Yahoo! who'd started using Yahoo! in college were getting too old to spend enough time updating their profiles, while kids still in college discovered a new network called Facebook that they parents would definitely not be on.
360 was followed by something called Mosh (eventually renamed to Mash), and a separate platform called PHUGC was built, initially using yblogs, but probably independent later on.
Now in all this time, Yahoo! also had Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Chatrooms. Two services that did fairly similar things, but worked completely separately from each other, even using different protocols.
I think if there had been better vision early on, perhaps by studying usage patterns of Geocities and Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! could have approached things much differently, and built a unified social network that would keep building users rather than splitting them into separate verticals.
Major companies are too slow to make decisions and change their approach. On the example of the same Facebook, it becomes obvious that right now they are losing part of the audience every day due to the fact that people are dissatisfied with the platform. More and more people understand that Facebook is aimed at making money, and that a person is absolutely not interested there, as soon as transferred all his data to the platform. After that, it becomes the object of advertising, which can always be turned off. Therefore, we can conclude that building a social network is too fast changing busi
Major companies are too slow to make decisions and change their approach. On the example of the same Facebook, it becomes obvious that right now they are losing part of the audience every day due to the fact that people are dissatisfied with the platform. More and more people understand that Facebook is aimed at making money, and that a person is absolutely not interested there, as soon as transferred all his data to the platform. After that, it becomes the object of advertising, which can always be turned off. Therefore, we can conclude that building a social network is too fast changing business for large companies, and it is easier to build a social network on modern technologies and modern principles with a small but close-knit team of like-minded people. Now I am studying what blockchain technologies can bring us. Of course, in the field of web3 there are problems with scalability, but this is a matter of time. Social networks will also take their place in web3 and there are already ready-made examples of projects. I am currently following the Solcial project. Solcial model is fundamentally different from everything we are used to, so we need to watch out for a new gem.
I worked for a large Internet company that missed the boat on social networking, despite having key ideas such as opening up the social graph and universal login (Facebook Connect) and Web-wide sharing to your social graph (Like) back in 2006/7.
The big reasons that I think we missed it:
- Short-term revenue focus. These projects weren't going to generate revenue that hit in the quarter. Any financial payoff was years away, whereas the expenses were now.
- Interdepartmental conflict. These ideas didn't fit cleanly in one silo or another. Delivering them required threading the needle among multiple p
I worked for a large Internet company that missed the boat on social networking, despite having key ideas such as opening up the social graph and universal login (Facebook Connect) and Web-wide sharing to your social graph (Like) back in 2006/7.
The big reasons that I think we missed it:
- Short-term revenue focus. These projects weren't going to generate revenue that hit in the quarter. Any financial payoff was years away, whereas the expenses were now.
- Interdepartmental conflict. These ideas didn't fit cleanly in one silo or another. Delivering them required threading the needle among multiple product and engineering groups, which is always difficult in large organizations.
I agree with the comments above about the original constraining factors (e.g. Harvard students) helping Facebook develop usage patterns. Much as Twitter's 140 character defined how people use Twitter, the constraint of having common interest patterns defined usage that helped later users "get" how to use Facebook.
One of the other problems big organizations face: true innovation is really hard to test in focus groups. Most people can't think that far outside of what they know. Whenever I tested social concepts in focus groups (3-4 years ago), they tested poorly because people couldn't relate. "Who cares that John Smith is at the Mets game tonight?" was a typical reaction. It only resonates when it's someone you know.
Another common reason is legal concerns. When you're making real money, you worry about protecting it. Think about something like YouTube. Many large company legal departments would shoot that down for fear of putting the existing business at risk. But when that's all your startup does, you push forward. Heck, in many cases, getting sued by Big Bad Business is a marketing strategy.
I wrote a post about YouTube and innovation a few years ago:
http://blog.agrawals.org/2006/10/12/could-youtube-have-come-from-a-large-company/
In about 2005 I remember Sergey Brin or Larry Page practically mocking social networking and disputing its potential value to search and advertising. As a Google shareholder, I found this really distressing--anyone who had used Facebook when it was limited to a small group of colleges would have recognized that these comments were foolish and ill informed.
I think Google suffered from a generational blindspot that prevented them from recognizing the likely trajectory of Facebook or the threat to their business. In large part I think this was due to the unintentionally sneaky way with which Fac
In about 2005 I remember Sergey Brin or Larry Page practically mocking social networking and disputing its potential value to search and advertising. As a Google shareholder, I found this really distressing--anyone who had used Facebook when it was limited to a small group of colleges would have recognized that these comments were foolish and ill informed.
I think Google suffered from a generational blindspot that prevented them from recognizing the likely trajectory of Facebook or the threat to their business. In large part I think this was due to the unintentionally sneaky way with which Facebook grew from colleges to students to anyone.
After using the facebook ad platform and adwords side by side in recent weeks, I'm convinced that Google is still underestimating Facebook as a threat and the compelling value proposition that Facebook offers to advertisers.
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If anyone can find a reference to this I'd love to see it. I vaguely remember it being at Vegas (perhaps CES) but I haven't been able to find the quote.
There are several ways to get access to GoLand for free or with minimal expense:
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- Take advantage of special offers. Just like all JetBrains IDEs, GoLand is available for free to students and open-source contributors. There are also free license
There are several ways to get access to GoLand for free or with minimal expense:
- Participate in the Early Access Program. EAP builds let you try out the latest features for free. Please be aware that these builds are not fully tested and might be unstable. Just like the releases, EAPs happen three times a year, each lasting for 8-9 weeks. All EAP builds are valid for 30 days from their date of release. You can learn more about it here.
- Take advantage of special offers. Just like all JetBrains IDEs, GoLand is available for free to students and open-source contributors. There are also free licenses for user groups and other special offers. Read the details on this page.
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In doing research for my new book, Social Search, I interviewed people inside Google, Facebook, and Yahoo about exactly this subject. One of the most telling replies came from a person who knew Larry Page while he was still in school, and told me that he seemed like a "human robot." "It is not surprising," my source said, "that Larry would believe that algorithms could solve all the problems of a business. The ordered universe of math was his way, and social interaction was not his strong suit." His overall point was that every company has a DNA that defines it, and that DNA comes from the
In doing research for my new book, Social Search, I interviewed people inside Google, Facebook, and Yahoo about exactly this subject. One of the most telling replies came from a person who knew Larry Page while he was still in school, and told me that he seemed like a "human robot." "It is not surprising," my source said, "that Larry would believe that algorithms could solve all the problems of a business. The ordered universe of math was his way, and social interaction was not his strong suit." His overall point was that every company has a DNA that defines it, and that DNA comes from the founders. And it is near impossible to stray from that DNA later on.
If we look at Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, he started Facebook to build a social milieu around himself. Doing so necessitated a product that required strong interaction between people and asked them to share a lot of personal information. That seed has now grown into a very robust company and, no surprise, the DNA of sharing and sociality is the defining attribute of Facebook.
I would say the same principle applies to Microsoft, whose DNA is in software (although they did manage to make a successful showing in hardware with the XBox), and Yahoo, whose DNA is in directories, search, and e-mail.
- Prioritization and determination. I don't think these big companies wanted to own this space as much as Facebook did. Social networking didn't fit neatly into Google's mission of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible through search." In the case of Microsoft, I don't think they saw social networking as something that would help "people and businesses will fulfill their potential." I'm not sure what Yahoo was doing—they seemed to lack focus all around.
- Approach. When the big players finally decided to really compete in this space, their approach was wrong.
- Prioritization and determination. I don't think these big companies wanted to own this space as much as Facebook did. Social networking didn't fit neatly into Google's mission of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible through search." In the case of Microsoft, I don't think they saw social networking as something that would help "people and businesses will fulfill their potential." I'm not sure what Yahoo was doing—they seemed to lack focus all around.
- Approach. When the big players finally decided to really compete in this space, their approach was wrong. Social networking is very human. Social interactions are complex, and building a good product requires a lot of attention to detail. As an outsider, it seems that these big companies thought, "How do we get people to use this? How many features can we cram in?" instead of "What is the best experience for users?"
- Too much baggage. Most importantly, these big guys also had a lot of internal constituents to worry about. I can imagine whenever someone at Microsoft had a new idea, they were asked to talk to the director of Windows Live to get approval and have a 3-year plan for integration. Googlers probably needed to build on top of Orkut and work within existing paradigms even if they were wrong. And of course, the big companies probably needed to make sure the advertisers were taken care of before launching. Just build the damn thing and iterate.
I think this is generalizable into other companies/verticals as well; focused startups have an advantage over bigger companies that are less focused or have more baggage. Move quickly and focus on the product.
Disclosure: I currently work for Facebook. These views are my own and are not representative of those of my employer.
Speaking for Yahoo only, I can only say that somewhere around 1999-2000, the focus at the company shifted firmly towards revenue, and products that had no direct advertising or subscription-based ROI were de-prioritized. Yahoo was a major pioneer in social, through both homegrown products (Photos, Profiles, Groups, Chat, Message Boards, etc) and acquisitions (eGroups, GeoCities), but most of those products were (sadly) left to wither as the bubble burst and suddenly it was all about products that resonated with advertisers - finance, sports, and of course, search.
Between 2000-2006, there were
Speaking for Yahoo only, I can only say that somewhere around 1999-2000, the focus at the company shifted firmly towards revenue, and products that had no direct advertising or subscription-based ROI were de-prioritized. Yahoo was a major pioneer in social, through both homegrown products (Photos, Profiles, Groups, Chat, Message Boards, etc) and acquisitions (eGroups, GeoCities), but most of those products were (sadly) left to wither as the bubble burst and suddenly it was all about products that resonated with advertisers - finance, sports, and of course, search.
Between 2000-2006, there were a number of initiatives to try to make a play to expand the Yahoo ID to mean something besides an email address, but all of the products were thinly staffed and rarely, if ever, promoted. I can't recall all of the names of the initiatves - Yahoo 360 was one, I believe - but all of them seemed to be DOA, and you never got the sense that social was a priority. Believe me, it was frustrating as somewhat sad.
Piggybacking on what Peter and Aaron said and drilling down a bit, I would say additional factors are the lack of design and marketing influences in Google's product development process. Google's engineering driven culture is the reason for its success, but also a factor in its failure in some areas. I'm not saying Google should be design driven like Apple, but a little balance is good. I also heard some product managers complain how influence tilts towards the engineers.
And once you're behind in the market, spending on advertising is a good avenue to catch up (i.e. Microsoft's B
Piggybacking on what Peter and Aaron said and drilling down a bit, I would say additional factors are the lack of design and marketing influences in Google's product development process. Google's engineering driven culture is the reason for its success, but also a factor in its failure in some areas. I'm not saying Google should be design driven like Apple, but a little balance is good. I also heard some product managers complain how influence tilts towards the engineers.
And once you're behind in the market, spending on advertising is a good avenue to catch up (i.e. Microsoft's Bing) but this goes against Google's mantra of zero marketing spend. Only recently has Google started to spend significant amounts of ad/marketing money to compete in the enterprise space, but it could have done this with Orkut while trying to upgrade and improve it.
The amazing fact that is sometimes forgotten is that Orkut is a top 50 site worldwide, number one is Brazil and India, and essentially the business/name card for everyone in Brazil. This is done with zero marketing. Sort of a shame that Google didn't place more emphasis on developing and marketing Orkut early on while MySpace and Facebook were just starting out.
Eh? That’s an incorrect premise.
Alphabet, who owns Google, also owns YouTube.
YouTube is the globally-dominant social media platform for video, and there’s a good amount of social networking functionality there, it’s just optimized for a slightly different purpose.
But it’s a lot more popular and widely used than TikTok.
Microsoft owns LinkedIn. That’s 100% a “social networking” platform, it just has an employment spin on it.
Yahoo…well…it had been in poor shape for years despite running several successful web utilities—I don’t think its current management would want to try to venture into spaces
Eh? That’s an incorrect premise.
Alphabet, who owns Google, also owns YouTube.
YouTube is the globally-dominant social media platform for video, and there’s a good amount of social networking functionality there, it’s just optimized for a slightly different purpose.
But it’s a lot more popular and widely used than TikTok.
Microsoft owns LinkedIn. That’s 100% a “social networking” platform, it just has an employment spin on it.
Yahoo…well…it had been in poor shape for years despite running several successful web utilities—I don’t think its current management would want to try to venture into spaces already so crowded by really successful participants.
Innovator's Dilemma. To build a large successful social network you first need to build a small successful social network, one without all the features and bells and not yet totally locked down and idiot proofed for some imaginary mass market.
It is very difficult within a large company to ride the curve from a highly engaged small community and frequent iterations to a much larger "successful" community and a focus on stability.
This famous leaked note of Steve Yegge - https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX, also gives a good insight into why Google and in general companies, fail at building platforms. And since one of the biggest reasons for FB's success was that they built and marketed it as a platform for delivery of social games and apps, the issues mentioned in this post should also be considered as one of the reasons why companies fail to build good social networks
This might seem like an overly simple answer but to me it seems that the companies you mentioned were all VERY successful at other things. When your business is based on other areas (search, display, software, etc.), your best resources are naturally going to be focused in those areas. To think that they could even try to compete in something like social would be an amazing feat.
Think about it, how many companies that are great at something ever achieve greatness in another area? Not many.
I agree with almost everything Aaron said but I think Peter hit the nail on the head with his comment about too much baggage. When you take several groups with different objectives and ask them to paint one vision you get a product with lots of solutions that don't actually solve any meaningful problem.
Having worked on orkut and now Facebook, I can say that the approaches are like night and day.
previous folks got this right, but are buried further down... innovators dilemma, too much "baggage" (= lines of revenue), generational issues maybe but prob not quite the story (more likely just not very social).
very simply: all those big companies were/are making huge $$$ doing *other* things than social platforms. no organizational threat on those vectors, then the beast doesn't move to counter.
now, this doesn't explain why they haven't *bought* another SNS, but prob for same reason they value it less than the creator of it would.
DMC
Large companies only track revenue threats, which on the consumer web lags behind user adoption. By the time the revenue impact is apparent, it is too late to compete with a consumer product with traction and network effects.
I don't think it's a product, culture, or fit problem (only indirectly). Fundamentally it's a marketing problem - Facebook succeeded by sequentially achieving near 100% usage in micro-markets - higher education. Could have been because it was a superior product, but I think fundamentally, the signal to noise ratio on the early site was incredibly high - the only people using it were people you knew in real life, from your school. Huge social imperative.
Google's DNA is algorithmic. The founders begrudgingly left their Ph.D pursuits at Stanford to give Google the attention it needed to become the Google that changed the world. The genesis of the company centered around mathematicians and world class engineers. Anyone else involved from what I've read were culturally second class citizens at best. The founders of Google are brilliant - but they are not inherently 'social'. In fact, Google has always taken pride that their products are designed by data - not product managers or visionaries. With this heritage, and the subsequent methodical hirin
Google's DNA is algorithmic. The founders begrudgingly left their Ph.D pursuits at Stanford to give Google the attention it needed to become the Google that changed the world. The genesis of the company centered around mathematicians and world class engineers. Anyone else involved from what I've read were culturally second class citizens at best. The founders of Google are brilliant - but they are not inherently 'social'. In fact, Google has always taken pride that their products are designed by data - not product managers or visionaries. With this heritage, and the subsequent methodical hiring approach used to bring on people that cleared the Googler algorithmic hiring approach - why is anyone surprised the Google+ or other social media plays by Google will be challenging?
I'm not saying Google won't succeed in some meaningful, and potentially unintended way with Google+, I believe they will. But it will not be a social network analogous or directly competitive to Facebook - the founding heritage of the two companies have placed them both on a trajectory set at the initial conditions of their respective big bangs.
I think all points listed here are valid, but I tend to put more of the weight on the points Alex made: network effect and marketing. I remember getting on facebook very early because my brother was at Harvard when it first started. Everyone at Harvard got on facebook because it was just like the first electronic version of paper facebook that everyone got in the mail. They were comfortable with that and wanted to get on something everyone else was doing. Then I got on facebook because they expanded to the ivy league and I knew people on facebook at Harvard (like my brother). I started to
I think all points listed here are valid, but I tend to put more of the weight on the points Alex made: network effect and marketing. I remember getting on facebook very early because my brother was at Harvard when it first started. Everyone at Harvard got on facebook because it was just like the first electronic version of paper facebook that everyone got in the mail. They were comfortable with that and wanted to get on something everyone else was doing. Then I got on facebook because they expanded to the ivy league and I knew people on facebook at Harvard (like my brother). I started to use it more over time because pretty soon people from my alma mater also started using it. In contrast, I didn't use friendster much at that time even though I signed up earlier than facebook because I didn't know many other people on friendster. Also, it felt "safer" to use facebook because it was just other ivy leagure folk. If facebook had expanded to everyone at that time, I might not have used it. I didn't choose facebook over friendster because of features. While I don't suppose to know exactly why other people started using facebook, I would be willing to wager that most of the people who started using facebook went through similar thought processes as I did. Thus, I agree with Alex that the most important key to facebook success was micro-market penetration: harvard, ivy-leagues, colleges, high schools, everyone. Facebook succeeded in getting the most users because it paradoxically was the most exclusive when it first started. Of course, they did a lot of other good things to build on that success. Most other companies in social networking, including the bigger companies, didn't follow this approach and that is a big reason why they have not done well, that and they had to compete with facebook and myspace to a lesser extent. I am sure that features and all of the other things that people mentioned have a role as well but with social networking, managing the network effect is the critical factor that determines success (in my opinion).
Google is the online equivalient of pulling over in your car and asking for directions: how do I get to the shops. Google makes money by providing directions to me free of charge and charging the shops to push me in their direction.
The problem for Google is that I have a new way of finding nice shops: asking my mates on facebook - I must be ten or twenty times more likely to visit a site or buy from it as a result of a recommendation from a real person via a social network than I am via a search on google.
That is the equivalent of having a friend in the car who's been to the shops, and who t
Google is the online equivalient of pulling over in your car and asking for directions: how do I get to the shops. Google makes money by providing directions to me free of charge and charging the shops to push me in their direction.
The problem for Google is that I have a new way of finding nice shops: asking my mates on facebook - I must be ten or twenty times more likely to visit a site or buy from it as a result of a recommendation from a real person via a social network than I am via a search on google.
That is the equivalent of having a friend in the car who's been to the shops, and who tells me there is a killer sale on. The friend is never going to give me the comprehensive guide to all the shops that google can, but I'm going to trust them more anyway. Besides I'm a guy and I don't even like shopping.
Google's thinking was flawed from the outset. It assumed we want to find things through Search. Actually we've always preferred to have a human guide, we've always trusted personal recommendation more than directories: facebook made the dialogue possible online. Search was just a stand-in while we didn't have any easy way of keeping in touch online.
Facebook will overtake google as a referral site. Whether it overtakes it in revenue is another matter. It could be that Google are still right.
- Most of these companies' attempts at entering the space are reactive to what other companies are doing (mostly Facebook), so they're behind the curve. This is very difficult to overcome as the network effects in social networking are strong.
- Technology companies tend to fill themselves with bright people, and their management strategy tends to focus a lot on creating motivation and sense of purpose rather than creating procedures and structure. So they create a strong culture around a specific mission that is pervasive and helps them execute toward it, but that culture also prevents them
- Most of these companies' attempts at entering the space are reactive to what other companies are doing (mostly Facebook), so they're behind the curve. This is very difficult to overcome as the network effects in social networking are strong.
- Technology companies tend to fill themselves with bright people, and their management strategy tends to focus a lot on creating motivation and sense of purpose rather than creating procedures and structure. So they create a strong culture around a specific mission that is pervasive and helps them execute toward it, but that culture also prevents them from being competitive at things that fall outside that mission.
- They simply haven't, yet. Their attempts to date have not been successful, but they may be in the future.
I think that successful project is a product of certain environment. Google and Yahoo grew up in the technological environment of Stanford University and later developed within the engeneer environment. Wikipedia is a product of Jimmy Wales, the economist, and the philosopher Larry Sanger. Encyclopedia developed further in the academic environment of professors and students. Facebook was born in the atmosphere of Harvard Univeristy, where general education categories are: Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding, Culture and Belief, Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning, Ethical Reasoning, Scie
I think that successful project is a product of certain environment. Google and Yahoo grew up in the technological environment of Stanford University and later developed within the engeneer environment. Wikipedia is a product of Jimmy Wales, the economist, and the philosopher Larry Sanger. Encyclopedia developed further in the academic environment of professors and students. Facebook was born in the atmosphere of Harvard Univeristy, where general education categories are: Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding, Culture and Belief, Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning, Ethical Reasoning, Science of Living Systems, Science of the Physical Universe, Societies of the World, and so on. The outcoming product depends exactly on the environment, as it is impossible to ask a physician to invent a computer in his working time, or a programmer to manage the finance of a company.
In my opinion, such companies as Microsoft or Google didn't create their own social networks as there was no appropriate soil for that within the companies themselves.
They don’t create an excellent product. Try https://www.justface.co It is a simple social network
I believe these major brands have not been successful in 'exploiting' social media is due almost exclusively to the way they think. Large organisations operate with a predominantly command and control mind set. What do companies need to survive?
Orders
Order
Stability
Continuity
Rules
Fear
Withholding Information
Measurement
Incentives
Competition
The mind set of those who have started Twitter, FB et al is very different and pretty much diametrically opposed to command-and-control. What do they need to survive?
Everyone is a leader
Everyone sensing, responding,
Transparency
Trust
Peers
Agile
I believe these major brands have not been successful in 'exploiting' social media is due almost exclusively to the way they think. Large organisations operate with a predominantly command and control mind set. What do companies need to survive?
Orders
Order
Stability
Continuity
Rules
Fear
Withholding Information
Measurement
Incentives
Competition
The mind set of those who have started Twitter, FB et al is very different and pretty much diametrically opposed to command-and-control. What do they need to survive?
Everyone is a leader
Everyone sensing, responding,
Transparency
Trust
Peers
Agile
Adaptable
Self-organising
If you think about the initial cost of starting Twitter was likely around $0.5m-$1m. This is a very small fraction of these brands' marketing spend and yet if anyone of them had diverted some of their spend into creating a tool that's actually useful to people without regard to the products and services they want to sell, would they ever need to advertise on the web again, if they'd created Twitter?
There are many other useful tools a big brand could create with negligible sums of money that could be as successful as Twitter, but no big brand has the framework (that is, mind set) in which to make this happen.
Just this Christmas I talked to a senior Nike marketer about this idea and suggested they just go out there and solve problems for people. As understanding as he was, he said there was no way this could be 'sold' internally. The reaction from internal budget holders would go something like this;
WTF? You mean it won't enable us to sell more shoes?
My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the companies that succeed in social networking are those that are first and foremost social networks (i.e. Facebook, Twitter). Those that view it as an afterthought to their principal business, e.g. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, probably don't really understand what drives the social or haven't put the resources into social that they should.
I think they have all failed because they try to force you into their platform. Lets take Google Buzz for instance. This would be great if they just added RSS feeds for your following. Instead you have to log onto GMail and then look at everyone you are following. This is a pain so no one goes there except people that already live out of GMail.
Yahoo is similar, you have to log into their system and it isn't friendly with out one's at all. There's no easy way to tie it in with twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc. They try to keep you just in their world and no one works that way in the real wo
I think they have all failed because they try to force you into their platform. Lets take Google Buzz for instance. This would be great if they just added RSS feeds for your following. Instead you have to log onto GMail and then look at everyone you are following. This is a pain so no one goes there except people that already live out of GMail.
Yahoo is similar, you have to log into their system and it isn't friendly with out one's at all. There's no easy way to tie it in with twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc. They try to keep you just in their world and no one works that way in the real world.
Niche vs. corporate approach.
Microsoft couldn't get anything besides their OS and Microsoft Office right until they finally got the gaming console right with the XBox. Big companies have a hard time doing anything outside their focus. Apple is the company that breaks the mold, but I'll be shocked if they make whatever their annoying gimmick of a social music network is called anything more than a feature of iTunes.
Big corporate has a hard time shifting direction, and it's much better to be a one-game player in something as fast paced as social media.
By the way, I really wish FriendFeed had stu
Niche vs. corporate approach.
Microsoft couldn't get anything besides their OS and Microsoft Office right until they finally got the gaming console right with the XBox. Big companies have a hard time doing anything outside their focus. Apple is the company that breaks the mold, but I'll be shocked if they make whatever their annoying gimmick of a social music network is called anything more than a feature of iTunes.
Big corporate has a hard time shifting direction, and it's much better to be a one-game player in something as fast paced as social media.
By the way, I really wish FriendFeed had stuck it out as an independent. I'm still saddened that they aren't in the space as a long-term player and they definitely had the most interesting movement in SM.
Facebook "won" (so far) because of one reason
Real Names Please:
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RealNamesPlease
Facebook is just an amalgamation of any number of forums, community sites, blogs, etc. The only reason it works is because your average user who doesn't know what a 20 sided die is would rather talk to "Steven Forcham" then "ninefivesteven".
Facebook took the radical approach of making you verify that you were really a member of the school you said you were. Then they made you use your own, REAL name. When new users sign up, they don't see "bigkoala156 wants to be your friend". They see the
Facebook "won" (so far) because of one reason
Real Names Please:
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RealNamesPlease
Facebook is just an amalgamation of any number of forums, community sites, blogs, etc. The only reason it works is because your average user who doesn't know what a 20 sided die is would rather talk to "Steven Forcham" then "ninefivesteven".
Facebook took the radical approach of making you verify that you were really a member of the school you said you were. Then they made you use your own, REAL name. When new users sign up, they don't see "bigkoala156 wants to be your friend". They see the real names of their real friends.
Compare with MySpace, who still has stupid "usernames".
They already have prominent web apps they are trying to promote, and they don't want to just throw them all away. Yahoo has mail, of course, and Flickr, neither of which brands they want to throw away.
Look at Google. They have several best-in-class products that are core features of Facebook: messages (Gmail), photos (Picasa), search (Google). They have others that are at least decent (Google
They already have prominent web apps they are trying to promote, and they don't want to just throw them all away. Yahoo has mail, of course, and Flickr, neither of which brands they want to throw away.
Look at Google. They have several best-in-class products that are core features of Facebook: messages (Gmail), photos (Picasa), search (Google). They have others that are at least decent (Google Profile). They don't want to scrap all of the effort they have put into all of these. They want to keep them all as separate products, but loosely tie them together.
They are doing a pretty bad job tying them together, too. For example, not one of my Gmail Contacts includes a photo. But I have many of these peoples' photos
tied to their Google contact
in Picasa. It has built a collection of photos of my mom. Why doesn't it...
Agree with many of the comments above. I worked at AOL before it truly stopped being a dominant force and, in the UK especially, the value of social media was recognised highly. As part of a small team we investigated a number of SM ideas, but the company's vacillating approach in the US meant that none of them ever really got off the ground.
Ironically, AOL's knowledge, skills and reach in the chat/community area meant that it was in a prime position to excel in social media, but as with the other large companies mentioned, it was never deemed a priority. They were too busy trying to 'kill Ya
Agree with many of the comments above. I worked at AOL before it truly stopped being a dominant force and, in the UK especially, the value of social media was recognised highly. As part of a small team we investigated a number of SM ideas, but the company's vacillating approach in the US meant that none of them ever really got off the ground.
Ironically, AOL's knowledge, skills and reach in the chat/community area meant that it was in a prime position to excel in social media, but as with the other large companies mentioned, it was never deemed a priority. They were too busy trying to 'kill Yahoo'.
This is symptomatic of any company which becomes a large oil tanker, unable to be agile and change course quickly.
It's fair to say that most SM successes didn't really set out to be world beaters and started with small seeds and from a tiny base. The 'big boys' expect to succeed instantly without the hard graft. Therein lies your answer.
The major companies listed in the question are all some kind of software companies. Social network is more than a software. It relies on software like everything else nowadays. However, software development is not the main business of a major social network provider like Facebook. Social network may be classified as an organization or maybe even as an organism.
Many responses have mentioned that these companies didn't think that social networking held promise, or provided true value to users. The big question is, why?
Building on Peter Deng's point about "approach," the human element is a difficult one for high-tech companies to appreciate. For example, Google is masterful at using algorithms to provide value. But, people's behavior can't be mathematically predicted.
Instead, people are messy. Creating compelling social experiences relies on understanding how people communicate and build relationships. This is a study of humanities, not math.
The c
Many responses have mentioned that these companies didn't think that social networking held promise, or provided true value to users. The big question is, why?
Building on Peter Deng's point about "approach," the human element is a difficult one for high-tech companies to appreciate. For example, Google is masterful at using algorithms to provide value. But, people's behavior can't be mathematically predicted.
Instead, people are messy. Creating compelling social experiences relies on understanding how people communicate and build relationships. This is a study of humanities, not math.
The core competency of these organizations simply doesn't translate to offerings that fundamentally rely upon human interactions.
What has an existing company succeeded in a new market?
Many many 25 billion dollar a year markets has Google created?
How many has Yahoo created?
Microsoft only has to see what exists and to copy and improve it. Microsoft never had to innovate. Microsoft could not have been as successful as it was if innovation was required. Innovation is expensive and fails 90% of the time. Innovation is the worst thing for your revenues.
It is the nature of companies to succeed and to die. Why Yahoo, Microsoft and Google? Why dont you ask why Myspace did not innovate in social networking and was surpassed
What has an existing company succeeded in a new market?
Many many 25 billion dollar a year markets has Google created?
How many has Yahoo created?
Microsoft only has to see what exists and to copy and improve it. Microsoft never had to innovate. Microsoft could not have been as successful as it was if innovation was required. Innovation is expensive and fails 90% of the time. Innovation is the worst thing for your revenues.
It is the nature of companies to succeed and to die. Why Yahoo, Microsoft and Google? Why dont you ask why Myspace did not innovate in social networking and was surpassed by Facebook? Why not ask why Friendster failed where Myspace succeeded.
Every technology company cannot dominate every market and they should not try to. Google had an early lead in social networking with Orkut, but did nothing with it and let the project die. Why?
Simply because Google cannot do everything and they cannot do everything well and cannot be the best in every sector of consumer internet. Everything that did not fall within Google's core competencies and market has died within Google. Why should Google have put resources into Orkut?
The only reason Google is entering social networking today is that Facebook threatens Google's contextual advertising platform going into the future.
What Yahoo, Google and Microsoft do to generate revenue has almost nothing at all to do with social networking. Its not even clear to me why these companies would want to succeed in this space.
Facebook's revenues are pathetic. Netflix has more revenue than Facebook. Facebook has 500 million users and only 1-2 billion a year in revenue. Why would you want that company? Zynga pulled in over a billion a year on lead generation from its social games and ~$700 million of Facebook's revenue was from Zynga. No one has yet succeeded in social networking. No one so far has figured out how to monetize their user base effectively.
Unless Facebook figures out how to increase their per user monetization by 25x, Facebook would not become a Google sized company. At its current and past monetization rates social networking has not been a very desirable area except as it affects the strategic interests of these companies.
Google had a deal with advertising on MySpace and they lost a ton of money on it, because the ad space was almost worthless. After that experience, why would they be so eager to develop a social network? At the time Google had the opportunity to develop Orkut, it did not make sense to do so. By the time Google had recognized the importance of a social strategy, Facebook had already become dominate.
"Objection your honor! That question assumes facts not in evidence." All three of those companies have created social networking platforms with varying degrees of success in gaining users.
They lack a mass market entity to apply a social network to. Fbook applies a social network to serve the human entity. To serve the corporate entity...Yammar & Chatter apply a social network to internal corporate info, and LinkIn applies a social network to professionals & HR.
An improved question is... What entity is left unserviced by the social network tool?
While there certainly are some solid answers here, (of the ones I read) it looks like Michael Tanne is the closest to the target. Certainly the public's perception of Google (company) and Microsoft (company) is one of productivity, geekiness, Gmail, etc. In short, getting sh*t done, not effin' off for minutes let alone hours at a time. On the other hand, Friendster, MySpace (product), Facebook (product) and their ilk are able to start with a clean, if not mindless slate.
While it's certainly possible for Google and Microsoft to change the perception of their feathers, I would suggest they pau
While there certainly are some solid answers here, (of the ones I read) it looks like Michael Tanne is the closest to the target. Certainly the public's perception of Google (company) and Microsoft (company) is one of productivity, geekiness, Gmail, etc. In short, getting sh*t done, not effin' off for minutes let alone hours at a time. On the other hand, Friendster, MySpace (product), Facebook (product) and their ilk are able to start with a clean, if not mindless slate.
While it's certainly possible for Google and Microsoft to change the perception of their feathers, I would suggest they pause and check in with McDonald's (fast food chain) and see how their "we have healthy food" efforts are going. :)
In the meantime, notice how Google+ is just an add-on (pun intended) to the core Google "product". The public is likely to soften up to Google+, but I believe Google also knows that they have to play it slow and steady. They want to build on their one size fits all set of tools, with G+ being part of that suite, not positioned as a stand alone product. Which is probably what they should have done with Google Wave.
This question is huge and I believe there is much merit to the "businessy" reasons mentioned early on about priorities/focus/dna and resources. Also, its probably just true that there is a significant first-traction advantage given the nature of the beast and that facebook currently holds that advantage. But..I'd like to take it in a slightly different direction based on something I think is missing from the conversation but that was sparked by Michael Tanne above.
I agree with Michael that at least part of the problem for MSFT, YHOO and GOOG is with the users and our firmly rooted ideas of w
This question is huge and I believe there is much merit to the "businessy" reasons mentioned early on about priorities/focus/dna and resources. Also, its probably just true that there is a significant first-traction advantage given the nature of the beast and that facebook currently holds that advantage. But..I'd like to take it in a slightly different direction based on something I think is missing from the conversation but that was sparked by Michael Tanne above.
I agree with Michael that at least part of the problem for MSFT, YHOO and GOOG is with the users and our firmly rooted ideas of who these companies are. I'd call this - at its core - a brand problem. We believe and know certain things about these companies (productivity, news,search etc.) and its really hard to pull anchor on that sort of knowledge. We don't buy coffee from coke and we won't buy shoes made by Timex.
I'd like to suggest that Michael's idea of the "social context" be taken a step further than this brand idea ("you can't sell me things that I don't believe are you") because we're talking about a social platform - a special case for product and brand, I think. Why is it a special case? Because its more deeply embedded in the way we manage our identities than perhaps any "product" that has come before. Notably, unlike other products we use to manage our identities (fancy cars, hybrids, clothes, phones, everything), social networks are the mediums on which we manage our identities - they are spaces, more than they things or at least in addition to being things.
My first premise is that whatever the delta between the empirical meaning of a social "message" ("i'm in a relationship") and the actual perceived social meaning it has in one context or another (e.g. stated at dinner with friends vs. on facebook profile) is partially defined by the social medium itself. At the very least, i might feel that a message stated on an online social network will be interpreted differently than an otherwise identical statement made off-facebook. This concept was probably coined best as "the medium is the message" in McCluhen's classic "Understanding Media: Extensions Of Man", although this is a bit of a misappropriation...but go with it. Whats most important here is that as actors in the social world we are intensely aware of the affect the medium has on our message. I'm remembering back to my first couple of facebook posts - i spent what now seems like an impossibly long time deciding what to say, imagining what it would mean to say what I was going to say and so on and so forth. (I assure you I'm no more than averagely neurotic.) Don't even get me started on the discussions I had with my girlfriend - who everyone in my entire social universe knows I've been dating for years - about changing our relationship status online - same old fact, new social medium. Somehow, a fact on a given social medium is different to we broadcasters than a fact elsewhere. If X is a social message then I think its true that we feel that X+facebook != X+livingroom != X+GOOG.
My second premise is that we want to feel like we're in control of how the things we say and do are interpreted by our social world. The possibility of interpolation - or, specifically, interpolation that we don't control - agitates us, causes anxiety. Put in McCluhen's terms, when we don't understand the impact the medium has on the message then we don't understand how we'll be interpreted by our social world. We don't like this. People in the public eye develop a hardening to being misunderstood, but for the rest of us - and certainly in social settings we are invested in - we endlessly and tirelessly strive to have the interpretation of our social messages match our intentions. Put more dramatically, we really want to be known as the person we are trying to be.
My last premise is that the brand of the network/medium is incredibly powerful when we attempt to understand this "medium variable" and its affect on our social messages. Since we can't really know the interpolation provided by a new social medium, we are left to imagine it. I'd argue that in the absence of other information, brand knowledge strongly informs that imagination.
So...my two cents in this interesting discussion is that I think that part of the barrier to success that goog,yahoo and msft are faced with is - as michael said - about us. But...I think the affect brand has is deeper than our likelihood (or lack thereof) of accepting a new class of product from an accepted brand. I think its that the brand of these organizations is so strongly rooted in us that we believe it will more strongly pollute our social message - it will have a strong interpolative (is that a word?) affect. The brand that we simply don't know about, or that we know has significantly less brand "volume", we imagine will infect our social messages less, or that our own volume can outclass the new or low volume brand of a new social medium. We perceive/believe that we have more control over the "message lifecycle" in a low-volume-brand medium than on a high-volume-brand medium.
As an aside, this note has made me want to go back to school and do some research:
1. How coherent is the facebook brand? By "coherent" I mean something like the standard deviation of the word-attributes people ascribe to "facebook". I'd hypothesize that relative to the depth of exposure people have to facebook, its brand is incoherent. Coke would probably be very coherent (looking only at non-narrowly descriptive words that don't include "social network" and "beverage" etc.).
2. following on that, I'd love to understand where the brand attributes people DO ascribe to facebook come from. I hypothesize that while incoherent in a classic brand sense, that the map of brand attributes is very coherent relative to the individuals social network, or...perhaps even more specifically to their own sense of personal-brand or personal-brand aspirations.
Most of these discussions presume that we have found the best of all paradigms for a social networking platform. If this was 2004, we would be asking why people haven't yet figured out how to be as good as MySpace. So while I am really interested in this question, let not flatter Facebook too much while we are being inquisitive. In my opinion, the reason why Facebook is so successful has little to do with the technology and more to do with the fact that they were the first ones to profoundly tap into the reptilian side of our brains. Technology at the service of psychology. Why people are inve
Most of these discussions presume that we have found the best of all paradigms for a social networking platform. If this was 2004, we would be asking why people haven't yet figured out how to be as good as MySpace. So while I am really interested in this question, let not flatter Facebook too much while we are being inquisitive. In my opinion, the reason why Facebook is so successful has little to do with the technology and more to do with the fact that they were the first ones to profoundly tap into the reptilian side of our brains. Technology at the service of psychology. Why people are investing huge money into this concept like Facebook is a patentable idea and a permanent utility is beyond me. Already I am seeing a narrow path for Facebook: maintain its god-like status that tries to burrow itself into every facet of our social lives....or become as despised as microsoft. Just look at Zuckerberg's newly emboldened language. He is demanding a "pristine" social graph where he will check to make sure every user is using their real government name. Let's not even get into the technical issues with the website.
To me the most interesting question remains: will the social graph continue this path of consolidation over Facebook, or will it reverse its course and welcome fragmentation over a few different social networking providers?