Thematic Communities - The Future of Social Networks
Wired magazine editor in chief Chris Anderson spoke at the MediaBistro Circus conference about the prospects for social networking . In his opinion, this concept is completely misinterpreted by most experts. At the mention of the term “social network”, many people are used to thinking about projects such as Myspace and Facebook. They are constantly on the ear, but they do not at all reflect the main idea of ​​social networks, which is to unite thematic communities . Such communities form around a particular theme, the so-called “raison d'etre”.
“The community is one of those words that we use all the time, without thinking about its essence. - said Anderson. “The problem with social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook is that they are about nothing - they are about Myspace and Facebook.”
The future belongs to smaller sites that have a narrow focus and form thematic communities around themselves, the editor-in-chief of Wired said.
As an example, Chris Anderson mentioned the effect of the “long tail”, according to which the absolute majority of users are distributed across a variety of niche sites. The same effect is quite applicable to social networking sites.
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Absolutely any site can implement blogs, profiles and the ability to publish user-generated content. But this is completely inadequate for building a community. A successful model of community-building is applicable only around specific thematic content, and the more specific it is, the better. In this regard, designers like Ning , which provide the opportunity to create the most niche social networks, can be promising. Now there are already 25,000 communities united around a movie, car brand or other specific topics.
Mega-portals like Myspace or LJ are too huge and amorphous, so every user there inevitably falls into the hostile environment of strangers. “We have to pull out social networks from there and transfer them to our sites,” said Anderson, referring primarily to the audience of users and the content they generate.
In favor of the concept of Anderson says the fact that now the giant social networks are experiencing some problems with the effectiveness of advertising. Despite the theoretical beautiful calculations , in fact, these projects have not yet found an effective advertising business model. The stumbling block here is targeting. And this problem is automatically solved during the transition from universal social networks to thematic ones. While projects like Facebook or Myspace are selling advertisements in bulk for 20-30 cents per thousand impressions, an ordinary niche social network dedicated to homemade unmanned aircraft receives up to $ 7 for going through the Google Adsense advertising system.
“The community is one of those words that we use all the time, without thinking about its essence. - said Anderson. “The problem with social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook is that they are about nothing - they are about Myspace and Facebook.”
The future belongs to smaller sites that have a narrow focus and form thematic communities around themselves, the editor-in-chief of Wired said.
As an example, Chris Anderson mentioned the effect of the “long tail”, according to which the absolute majority of users are distributed across a variety of niche sites. The same effect is quite applicable to social networking sites.
')
Absolutely any site can implement blogs, profiles and the ability to publish user-generated content. But this is completely inadequate for building a community. A successful model of community-building is applicable only around specific thematic content, and the more specific it is, the better. In this regard, designers like Ning , which provide the opportunity to create the most niche social networks, can be promising. Now there are already 25,000 communities united around a movie, car brand or other specific topics.
Mega-portals like Myspace or LJ are too huge and amorphous, so every user there inevitably falls into the hostile environment of strangers. “We have to pull out social networks from there and transfer them to our sites,” said Anderson, referring primarily to the audience of users and the content they generate.
In favor of the concept of Anderson says the fact that now the giant social networks are experiencing some problems with the effectiveness of advertising. Despite the theoretical beautiful calculations , in fact, these projects have not yet found an effective advertising business model. The stumbling block here is targeting. And this problem is automatically solved during the transition from universal social networks to thematic ones. While projects like Facebook or Myspace are selling advertisements in bulk for 20-30 cents per thousand impressions, an ordinary niche social network dedicated to homemade unmanned aircraft receives up to $ 7 for going through the Google Adsense advertising system.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/25863/
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