Comments on: Thoughts on Blogs vs. Social Networks http://www.martingordon.org/blog/2007/05/28/thoughts-on-blogs-vs-social-networks/ Thu, 17 May 2012 23:58:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Jay Neely http://www.martingordon.org/blog/2007/05/28/thoughts-on-blogs-vs-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-38372 Jay Neely Mon, 28 May 2007 14:49:12 +0000 http://www.martingordon.org/blog/2007/05/28/thoughts-on-blogs-vs-social-networks/#comment-38372 Hello Martin! Thanks for the link, and let me start by saying that you've written some excellent points, particularly in your second to last paragraph. The one mistake I think you make is on focusing on Facebook as the primary example of a social network. Almost every social network site encourages you to find and invite your friends on, because that's how they get more users. But many social networks are designed to encourage finding new people a lot more than on Facebook. Tribe.net is all about "finding your community", which is less about people you know and more about an interest you all share. It still has the profiles, and private messaging, but groups and the message boards on them are presented as the primary components of Tribe, unlike Facebook where it's the other way around(profiles primary, groups secondary). LinkedIn.com is a professionals network in which you must connect with the people you know, so that you gain access to the people they know, and then access to the people those people know. By having six "1st-degree" connections, I have access to 14,500+ "2nd-degree" connections, and 1,104,300+ "3rd-degree" connections. Those are people I can browse through to find potential partners, employees, people who are hiring, etc. And LinkedIn's "Answers" sections lets a user ask a question, which is presented to the extended network, so that you can get answers and find new people who answered best. Social networks' foundations are built on the people you know, but many of those networks are designed to make it easy for you to add to those people you know. It's not an audience, like writing a blog, it's a pool of potential friends. Best, Jay Neely http://socialstrategist.com Hello Martin! Thanks for the link, and let me start by saying that you've written some excellent points, particularly in your second to last paragraph. The one mistake I think you make is on focusing on Facebook as the primary example of a social network.

Almost every social network site encourages you to find and invite your friends on, because that's how they get more users. But many social networks are designed to encourage finding new people a lot more than on Facebook. Tribe.net is all about "finding your community", which is less about people you know and more about an interest you all share. It still has the profiles, and private messaging, but groups and the message boards on them are presented as the primary components of Tribe, unlike Facebook where it's the other way around(profiles primary, groups secondary).

LinkedIn.com is a professionals network in which you must connect with the people you know, so that you gain access to the people they know, and then access to the people those people know. By having six "1st-degree" connections, I have access to 14,500+ "2nd-degree" connections, and 1,104,300+ "3rd-degree" connections. Those are people I can browse through to find potential partners, employees, people who are hiring, etc. And LinkedIn's "Answers" sections lets a user ask a question, which is presented to the extended network, so that you can get answers and find new people who answered best.

Social networks' foundations are built on the people you know, but many of those networks are designed to make it easy for you to add to those people you know. It's not an audience, like writing a blog, it's a pool of potential friends.

Best,
Jay Neely
http://socialstrategist.com

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