Social Networks: Past, Present & Future

							Social Networking

Past, Present, Future

 Mark Suster
 Caltech MIT Enterprise Forum
 October 9, 2010

 @msuster

 www.BothSidesofTheTable.com
Where Did Social Networking Start?
In our debates we tend to focus too much on
                technology
It’s about shared experiences & we’ve
         replicated this online
   It’s about meeting people &
communicated with those we know
Online social networks mirror offline lives
              It’s about the 6 C’s

 Communications

 Connectedness

 Common Experience

 Content

 Commerce

 Cool Experiences (ok, entertainment ;-)
It’s why

Becomes
It’s why

Becomes
Pre Internet had social networks
Pre Internet had social networks
Anyone around then will know what one
            of these was
AOL bridges gap between pre-Internet & Internet
People advertised “AOL Keywords” not websites




                              AOL Keyword:
                                Swordfish
Web 1.0 made it easier to have personal pages
        on “the web” (e.g. not AOL)
And “groups” have been around for ages



                         Mothers’ clubs

                         Church groups

                         Education
Social networks have been around for a long time.


  Usability is better.

  3rd-party platforms.

  More people are connected.



            But same old shit.
And then spam-based social networks began
Mostly for professional use / older demo
And it was really about extending your
                network
Web 2.0 was born and we evolved online
          social expression
Web 2.0 was born - social contribution

Blogging        Photos         Video
Web 2.0 went social - skewed back to youth
    Facebook launched. Was exclusive



 Up market
                       Teenage
 University
                       Middle America
 Exclusive
                       Scantily Dressed
 Urban elite
                       Design chaos
 Clean
                       Ads galore
 Ad free
                       Not verified
 Verified
It started as .edu
And they captured the tech elite
   They each captured 100m users, who
increasingly wanted to share photos / video
MySpace Bought PhotoBucket & Google Bought
                 YouTube




      And MySpace declared war
      on developers
And this guy (22)

               Schooled this guy (75)
He understood software business was
   different than media business
Within a SINGLE YEAR the game was over
And Facebook went mainstream
And then some !!!
And we’re back to advertising non-web pages




Brands are spending big & abandoning web
                  pages
Social networking then went “open”




               Asymmetric
               Public
Twitter really is a totally new concept

 Marketing channel

 RSS reader

 Instant messaging

 Chat Room

 Data mine

 Customer service Dept
And perhaps “open” went a bit too far




         Social Spending
I think we all know that social is going mobile
And people are building platforms to enable this


                           Business Logic


                           Mapping Layer


                          Points of Interest
      OK, OK

But Where are Things
    Headed Next?
1. Social Graph Becomes Portable
 2. We Form Around True Networks


  Friends                 Family


                                    Areas of
 Business                           Interest
Associates


                                   Dating
             Networking
      2. We Form Around True Networks
  Family     “ I’m coming home for Thanksgiving”



 Friends     “ Check out how wasted we were ;-)”


 Areas of
             “ Why did you choose MongoDB?”
 Interest

 Business
             “ I can’t believe we’re working again this weekend ”
Associates


  Dating     “ I love The Decemberists, too!”



Networking   “I’m looking for a role as a Director”
It’s ridiculous that these are all combined
                    today
Example: Quora
Example: HackerNews
    3. Privacy becomes a bigger concern



                   Pictures of your Kids
Your Friend                                3rd Party
                   Personal Info
                                             App
                   Date of Birth


                  You
3. Privacy becomes a bigger concern



                           Tweets

                          @ messages

                          DMs
                          (private)

                        3rd Party Apps
                        Can Access
4. Social Networking Becoming Pervasive
 So advertising & content curation are
       instantly more targetable




But most websites don’t know what to do
              beyond this
5. Third Party Tools (e.g. Meebo Toolbar) Will
      Bring Social Networks to Websites




              Twitter /                 Chat
              Facebook
5. But Also Bring Social “Features” like sharing
   6. Social Networking Will Split into Layers
                Business Logic
                                 Mapping Layers

 Totally New
                                 Network Layers
Opportunities
                           Social Graph / Features
                              Open Source Data
                 Mgmt Tools
                     EC2
                     S3
   7. Social chaos creates new markets


  Social                       Social
               Social SFA
 Support                      Marketing


 Personal      Reputation
                               Social
Relationship    Mgmt /
   Mgmt        Authority      Analytics
  Fuck “Check Ins & Badges”
Skate Where the Puck is Going
The definition of social networking will cease
  to exist in the way that we seldom think
          about Internet companies
And for those who wonder if Facebook now IS
         the Internet, remember ….
 Plus ça change
           Jan 1998




                      April 2000




May 2007
  It’s why Zuckerberg remains paranoid




And why there’s still a dream for those of
     you who work hard & innovate
Social Networking


Past, Present, Future



 Thank you