Dylan Schiemann

In my annual informal review of social networks among our cousins and other people under 21 that are still fickle, Facebook has completely replaced MySpace in their lives. In fact, the only people I hear talking regularly about MySpace are a bit older and just learning about social networking. I know, I know, small sample size, but why are social networks so fleeting?

• The network is only cool if your friends are there (a reason why MySpace became so popular)
• The network is only cool if it feels special or unique (a reason why MySpace is struggling to keep people)
• The network is only cool if it keeps adding new, non-annoying stuff (this is why Facebook’s app API is cleaning up… they are doing more to make things less-annoying, and why LinkedIn and MySpace are suffering). I still prefer LinkedIn for the business side of things, though I don’t actually do much with it other than collect professional contacts… most of its services feel too oriented towards “real” businessmen and not CEOs that still write code
• The network is only cool if it doesn’t get filled with so much junk and spam that it stops becoming useful (a reason why MySpace, and email, the original tech social network, are suffering). I believe that the single biggest reason for the success of walled-garden social networks is their ability to fight off spam.