Besides the fact that many people are already on FB, what would you be happy to see in a new social network?
I would like to go back to the basics. What's your opinion on more Privacy, more User Control and NO Apps & Games?
And actually, I closed my Facebook a while back. Well, I put up an image saying I was no longer responding there, but friends can contact me through other means listed in my profile. Close enough.
What do I want in a social network? Functionality that isn't about something trying to become the medium. That's what MySpace was and Facebook is, services trying to supplant the rest of the Internet. Messages, posts, walls, galleries, info, etc.? I have email, a blog, Twitter, IM, Flickr, a calendar, and a phone number for calling/texting people I talk to most often. I'm easily contactable for friends, as they are to me.
So all the problems that Facebook "solves"? Not really problems for me. And increasingly as more people use computers every day (yes, there are many who still don't,) those things won't be problems for everyone else either. These networks exist to help shoehorn those who aren't digitally literate (or those willing to sacrifice ability for ease) into the present. I honestly do think the need for this, will eventually start shrinking until it hits a base where people who are just uninterested in the Internet will be the only ones using them. Ironic, eh?
You want me to sign up for another social network? Offer some unique functionality I didn't realize I was missing, or build your network around something niche that I can't say "no" to. (Actually this reminds me of the "What would you do if you owned MySpace?" post from about a month ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2499250 )
FB keeps adding features we didn't know we were missing. If what I build is better, it means going beyond functionality to build something that redefines what the Social Network is.
I don't just want you to sign up for some feature you'll detest in a year. Maybe the question I should be asking is "What do You Wish the Social Network Could Do for You"?
"What do I want a social network to do for me?" The only reason I ever actively used Facebook was to look up info on my friends. So, I suppose I want a passive "black book" more than anything. A universal contact list.
Let users enter their data for defined fields (personal email, professional email, personal phone, pro phone, address, IMs, popular sites) and then them also define their own fields for inclusion (in case I want to let people know a particular forum or new service I spend time on. It's a good way to see what your users use.)
Then display it in a very minimalist way. Ever used Passpack? It lists my services, and has a grid of icons. So, list my contacts, and their info. When they don't have that info, leave the grid blank or grayed out. When they do, offer a clickable link for the site/service. (A link to IM them on that service, or to their profile on a site.)
Also let me add labels to each service, and to my contacts. For example, my personal email would have "friends", "online friends", and "family" labels, allowing each person I assigned those labels to see my personal email.
And bonus points if people sign up with their email addresses or phone numbers, rather than a site-specific username. It's silly for people to have to jockey for those on another service, relegating themselves to bigThunder1452 or the likes.
Asking users for the passwords (but not storing them) to confirm they own the accounts they list is nice, too. If a user hasn't logged in within the past month, ask them to confirm their data upon login.
With a minimalist design of a banner at the top, a list of recent contacts at login, and ways to list people by label, alpha, letter, or by account type, Throw an ad at the bottom or on a side.
I'm betting many business professionals would keep that tab open like I currently do with Gmail.
Hell, I've even thought of a name. Call it FriendInfo, and use FriendIn.fo, with, of course, purchasing friendinfo.com and friend.info as redirects.
The summary in three sentences: Build a passive blackbook with universally accessible contacts which allows ease of use and encourages participation with a points system. Layer a minimalistic design on top and lock it down with a bit of password security.
So simple. Did I miss anything?
I wasn't thinking a point system, more like, "Once you connect to other people, it your job to keep your information up to date, and what information others have access to."
Maybe ask people when signing up, "To help you stay in contact, we'd like to send you a reminder to keep this information up to date! Please choose a time frame for a reminder:" and let them choose 3 or 6 months. At least, I don't think an email once every six months (saying "your friends have this contact information from you:" If this is not up to date, please log in an update your contact info!) is spamming.
If you think you can do better than Facebook, then you have no reason to be asking us for advice. Clearly, you've already got some incredibly powerful idea that will get you enough traction to the "chicken/egg" problem for you, and compete with a company that has a user base of 600 million and billions of dollars in the bank.
So, don't waste your time chatting here-- go out and build it! And then, come back and show us, ok?
What you said is what I needed to hear. Thanks. Just catching some advice before building it over the summer. I'll be back!
Yes there was myspace / whatever other social networking sites, but the problem there was that none of them reached critical mass.
The only way you could build a better social network is if you really re-thought the problem. Thinking about stuff like privacy controls and apps is taking a facebook-like perspective on the matter, and you won't get anywhere.
You need to think about how a 21st century platform would behave. Define your niche.
And unless you plan on setting up a 501c3, you need to think about how this could be monetized. Ads? Now it would really be slick if you could find a better way of executing ads -- somehow 5 ads per page doesn't really appeal to me
So, I need to really rethink the social problem. Maybe I should be asking "What Social Problem Needs to Be Solved to Reach Critical Mass?".
And, thanks for the suggestion. Looks like my solution will involve better ad execution or none at all.
Like many posters, Facebook isn't "technologically revolutionary" - it simply went along with the flow and had the right people at the right time.
The reason why my social networking site failed was because users don't find another reason to jump ship from facebook to yours. All your close friends would definitely go and invite people, but there's a limit to how far people go to collect users for you before it's considered spam.
The top response I got was " Oh another social networking site?"
Do your homework and a project like this really shouldn't have taken you a whole year. Sometimes you've got to just ship the thing and get feedback. After all, its for the people, not for you.
Why didn't you release it to a certain college instead of starting from your friends? Like Barbara Corcoran stated on Mixergy, "never go to your family and friends to practice..." You should know why.
Are you saying I should start building now or are you really saying that I need to solve this "number of people on FB" problem first?
In other words: is privacy going to get my friends on there? If not, drop it. Is "no games" going to get my friends on there? Is more user control going to get my friends on there?
What I do next from the domain to the scripting language to the release locations will be focused not only on getting results but on getting the right results. Thanks!
Sounds extremely boring to me.
Right now, social networks are like junk food for humans. You know what I mean. I would like to solve that flaw sooner rather than later.
People want junk food. That's why everyone is fat and dumb. They watch junk on TV, read junk online, say junk to people on facebook, and eat junk at home.
0.000001% of people care about privacy and control and less apps & games.
Allow me to categorize my friends into work, friends, family, public categories and you're on the right track. Come up with a novel way to communicate with each other.
Junk food? True but I'd rather be Starbucks than McDonalds. If I do this, we're doing it right. I'll be back with something you can see this summer.
You want a simple organized directory that makes communication with your entire network dead easy? Got it.
Don't worry I won't steal your idea my company already has in motion what we want in a social network :)
How far are you into the process? Do you have a domain yet? Why don't we wait until I start coding the project this Summer. I'll have something built by then so we can compare notes and structure.
Sound like a plan! I've got your contact info; I'll be in touch.