Social Networking... What?

by Don Harkey

I'm not that old, but the age of online social networking is counted in dog years. In other words, online applications developed only 3 years ago are really 24 years old in networking age. I am defining an "online social network" as an internet tool designed to bring people together. Let's review a brief history...

When I was college in the mid 1990's, access to the internet was not yet universal, but it was possible. I had access through my work (relatively fast access for the time). The social network of choice at that time was the "chat room". There were countless chat rooms around all sorts of topics. Anyone could post anything either anonymously or not. The problem with it is finding people who know what they are talking about (this is an ongoing problem). Also, there were LOTS and LOTS of rooms and getting to relevant information was very challenging. Early chat room sites included Geocities (1994) and Tripod (1995).

An early paradigm shift occurred with the launch of Classmates.com (1995). Classmates focused on connecting "real" people with past classmates. You can register (for free) with Classmates.com and connect with others from your high school. Basically, you end up with a longer Christmas card list and maybe an interesting email or two.

In 2003, MySpace was launched borrowing heavily from features of other social networking sites. MySpace allowed users to create their own "profile" pages detailing all kinds of personal information and sharing them with friends. MySpace was popular mostly in U.S. amongst college students.

In the same year, LinkedIn was launched targeting business clients. With a more "professional" flavor to it, it allows users to recommend and "introduce" connections with each other. Several other business networking sites have followed Linked including Xing and others.

In 2006, Facebook was launched with to larger target market (the world) and with the option of using some applications (typically games or quizzes) developed by people not associated directly with Facebook. It quickly became the largest site in the world.

Perhaps the fastest growing application is Twitter (2006). Twitter has a few simple and unique features. First, it is much simpler than Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Users enter what could be considered a "micro-blog" (called "tweets") which are 140 characters or less (ex: "Got up this morning and my coffee maker was broken" or "Just gave a seminar on leadership and continuous improvement"). The real innovation from Twitter is that it is public and its information is readily accessible from other applications. This means it is searchable. For example, I might be visiting Branson, Missouri and post "I'm in Branson looking for golf partners". Others searching "Branson" and "golf" might see your post and respond to you setting up a group to play.

Of course, I haven't even talked about Blogging as a form of social networking. A Blog is basically a website that is updated frequently with articles. The articles might be random or centered on a specific topic. There are all types of blogs (including this one!). By the way, for Springfield, Missouri blogs, you can visit www.SGFblogs.com.

OK... that is a general history (and I left a LOT out). Here is the question of this week for organization leaders. What is the implications of all of these online applications? Can these be used by businesses and business leaders or are they just "time suckers"? Which applications have great business potential and which ones are wastes of time?

If you fall in the "waste of time" category, you should consider a few things. Facebook, the largest networking site, currently has 175 million users, many of whom check their accounts daily. It is widely known that newspapers are struggling worldwide as many people get their "news" from blogs and other online resources. The fact is that people go to the internet for their information which gives companies an opportunity to position themselves as an "expert". Applications like Twitter allow for focused searches allowing people to target a local market (my iPhone can show Twitter users with a radius of my current location).

Another key thing to consider... few people understand what the next steps are. Technology and internet availability have finally collided giving a new opportunity that has yet to be understood. Is it and opportunity worth exploring?

At least for the rest of this week it is! Stay tuned!