Thursday, October 26, 2006
Apple Missing Social Networking
According to the Wall Street Journal (via
MediaPost), MySpace and Facebook had fewer unique users than the month before, a bad sign for the social networking industry.
The slowdown has begun, and I expect both of these sites to start shedding users like a dog's summer fur. Concerns about privacy, spamming, and the fickleness of youth will cause people to move on to something else.
Social networking is a useful tool, but as
I've said before, it will be incorporated into niches rather than be used as a destination itself. Publishers will create sites such as Edmunds.com's
CarSpace that give their current audience a new way to communicate.
Instead of advertising on MySpace, Apple should create its own social network. Imagine the possibilities as the "they do no wrong" crowd pat each other on the backs about their wisdom and offer video editing tips or their latest iPod hacks.
MySpace will become like the mall to a teenager on Friday nights. "It's too crowded so nobody goes there anymore.
Posted By John Gartner at 12:33 PM
Permanent Link: Apple Missing Social Networking
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(3) Comments on Apple Missing Social Networking
I don't think it's that simple, John, and I'm not saying this as co-writer of a book on MySpace <www.myspaceunraveled.com>, just as a long-time observer of teens' use of tech. Growth on MySpace and Facebook *had* to flatten out, but I don't think we're going to see anything like a mass exodus to niche sites any time soon. I think geographically-based social sites or YouthNoise.com or sites for new-school skiers or skateboarders are just another arrow in the social quiver. It's hard to move entire peer groups from one social site to another, and - until all the niche sites are interoperable with email and IM, there will always be a need for one that aggregates friends, potential friends, and even ex-friends who might come back into the circle at one's school. That's my impression of this latest development.
Comments by Anne Collier : Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 04:28 PM
Apple already has a social network ... perhaps you could even call it a religion. How many other computer offer a sticker in each computer they sell and people actual use the stickers on their cars or like in their cube at work (look around - it's the white apple logo - older users have the rainbow logo). Look up Mac rumors - there are at least 5 major Mac rumor sites that are mostly wildly inaccurate but it does not diminish the millions who check in to see what might possibly be happening. Look at ars technica or digg - most of the tech stories that get the most views are mac related - sure, a lot of it are PC users getting in an insult or two but it's passion ... that's real marketing ... or MacSurfer or one of the 4 or 5 other Mac RSS like sites - Windows, a much bigger market has no daily site people go to read up on it - sure, there are hundreds of sites that offer up Windows info but to 99% of Windows users, it's like reading an instruction manual for a toaster ... mac users? It's like the instruction manual for a hovercraft ...
Comments by jbelkin : Friday, October 27, 2006 at 01:21 PM
I agree with belkin. Apple really doesn't need a social networking site or capability because its products inspire people to visit existing sites or drive them to create their own sites. Apple doesn't need to provide additional motivation, you see.
Apple sells productivity and communication-enhancing tools that actually are easy to use. Thus buyers use them to keep in contact with the people that are important to them. In other words, the social networking tool is the computer itself. Apple needs to add nothing.
Maybe Apple should just keep on doing what they're doing; after all, it has proven remarkably successful.
Comments by InRussetShadows : Friday, October 27, 2006 at 03:35 PM
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