Social Networking: It’s All About Communication!

Social networking sites have enjoyed amazingly explosive growth since starting to take off around 2004. The current leaders of the pack, Facebook and MySpace, have gained such combined prominence, that it’s very surprising to meet someone who ISN’T a member of one of these networks.

Today, everyone and their mother is going “social”, from blogs about cat pictures to long-time internet and software giants like Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

So what’s making this phenomenon tick? I’d like to suggest that communication is at the heart of the shift toward social applications and the social internet.

There are a few likely suspects when it comes to figuring out the social networking phenomenon:

• Social proof. We all like having social connections, and (for most people) the more connections the better. It’s called social proof. It’s the idea that people take cues about other people and things based on how other people associate with those people or things. In social networking, the more friends you have, the more likely there is reason for people think highly of you. Social networks can act as an “online popularity contest”. Not all people use social networks this way, but it’s a powerful force at play.
• Entertainment. Vampires and zombies don’t lie. All people love to have fun, and especially with each other. There’s a great post over at Silicon Valley Insider, Confirmed: Facebook Apps are Useless. They point out data to back up the idea that the most successful social applications are intended purely for fun. If you ask most people why they use social networks, you’ll usually hear a variation of “it’s fun” more than “it’s useful”. Could social networking be the biggest form of entertainment to hit the 21st century?
• Content Sharing. Sharing of both personal and public content has turned out to be a killer app of social networking. How many people really shared their pictures online before Facebook got big? Some of you may remember photo sharing sites like ImageStation (now dead) and Ofoto (now Kodak Gallery). While popular, these sites have not achieved mainstream success. So who’s the winner? As of now, it looks to be Facebook. People simply find it a lot easier to share their pictures (and other content) where their friends are.

And finally…

• Communication. The major forms of communication built into most social networking sites are some of the most heavily-used features. These include: inboxes, walls, status messages, notes, and comments. Some people have even forgone trusty old email in favor of using their social network as their primary means of communication. The first social networks started with simply a profile picture, profile details, and some form of a wall, and drove most of their usage via communication.

Communication holds a special spot in this list. In a sense it underlies everything people do on social networks. Social proof, entertainment, and content sharing all involve communication at some level. In a sense, the social network is a new communication medium along which people broadcast and receive various bits of information. Whether it’s personal data, a move in a game, or a new photo, it’s information traveling from one person to another along the social graph. The social network is really a new communication network.

Going forward, only time will tell what new social applications rise to prominence, and what value we as a society can derive from social networks. One thing, however, is for sure: communication has been and will be a key factor creating value and driving usage in social networks.