PSILOG
FACEBOOK IS A DATA ROACH MOTEL
by Emmanuel Verhagen on 10/08/2007
Tags MySpace Innovation Ning Social Networking Facebook Internet
Your data goes in, but it rarely leaves. At least according to Robert Scobble. It made me think about what the real value is of social networks. What are they actually doing and where do they go wrong? I have to admit: any social network I join asks me the same questions over and over again. Usually it ends up being an endless list of boring stuff. Meaning: self-evident. For me.
I don't mind sharing personal data, after all: that's part of the process of joining a community. On the other hand: my friends are dispersed over a whole bunch of communities and to keep track of them I join many communities. And every time I get confronted with the same boring list of questions, after which I usually end up with some form of disillusion. You would expect that with all the information I leave behind, a social network would at least make the effort of giving me a personalized, unique experience. Tapping into my drives and desires. But no sir, we don't do that. The things going wrong IMHO are:
- Unnecessary data collection (see above)
- Getting irrelevant mail: how come that every community tries to trick you into having a community-mailbox. I don't want that. I'm happy to share my email data with people I like, I don't want my mailbox full of community-mails telling me I have mail...
- Un-usability: Somehow many community sites forget the basics of navigation. Take MySpace: it's one of the most user-unfriendly site I've ever seen. It's like the old Geocities, but for people who haven't got a clue on writing HTML tags (it used to be so simple if you knew how to work with WordPerfect 4.2). Or Ning for that matter, which supposedly allows you to navigate between your own different networks, but when tit comes to tat, it's impossible to figure out how to do that
- ...
My guess is that they all fell into the most common of all innovation traps, : shortcutting, overpromising and underdelivering. It just doesn't work. It looks cool on a powerpoint to investors and maybe even slick when the design is finished, but it doesn't hold long term value if the user feels cheated and dissatisfied. The basics are the basics and will remain the basics. If you ask for personal information, tell your members how you will be using it, then use it, learn from it and give feedback so that your members get something out of it...
Think CSI, Criminal Minds, Monk, House... the process to come to relevant use and conclusions on personal information is always the same: collect the evidence, diagnose the pieces of information and finally solve the puzzle.
Maybe Groucho Marx was right: I don't want to be part of a community that would have me as a member...
Comments
by franck on 13/10/2007
agree..facebook is useless...interesting the first day but email is better