Clunky Flow

via Ina.

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From here:

The problem that I’m seeing with most of the current social networks is that 90% of the time spent on those social networks is work that is done in order to maintain currency, keep content fresh, and continue building a sprawling network of friends and raise popularity.

So, what does that mean? What it boils down to is this: If you are working for your social network instead of your social network working for you, you my friend, are standing on top of a classic MMO-style treadmill grind.

I have bobbed in and out of various social networks and there is something that every single one of them had in common: for me to gain any value from that network, I had to go out of my way to perform repetitive, out-of-band tasks just to gain any value from the network. Having been the victim of many a MMO treadmill grind, I recognize an infinite loop of horse poo when I see it, so I bailed.
I have yet to find a measurable value in Facebook or any of a dozen other social networks I’ve played with.

At some point, someone is going to get it “right”, and there will be a social network that gives us tremendous value without us having to sacrifice for the cause, and all of the apologists using MySpace, Facebook, and the others who don’t know they’re apologists will flee to the new network in droves.

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If you’ve been talking to me at all you probably heard me say stuff like this.

Connecting ‘people 2 info’ is trumped by connecting ‘people 2 people’.
Google is great at connecting people to information. But a better way to create new knowledge is to connect people to people. When you connect to people they discover and create new knowledge. And people find this activity deeply rewarding and highly addictive. As the guys discoverio say ‘..discovery is the new cocaine’.

The company that manages this will be bigger than Google
To give people what they want. To really connect people online. We have to create the same sense of privacy, reputation, identity and trust online that we take for granted in the real world.

I came across this today. An article riffing on a comment made by a leading VC…

Search is dead…[In the near future, people will] find what they want by using their social network rather than a search algorithm. After all, the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right?

Social discovery pivots on identity

…this focus on online identity is what could turn search upside down… it’s conceivable that the information could attempt to find us—the old concept of push media, but in a far more refined way. As new content enters the Web, it could tumble through the various filters that you set up around your identity…

The unholy mess of privacy and security issues show us where the pivotal opportunity lies

…[currently] nobody owns this space the way Google “owns” search. And as it evolves, there will be an unholy mess of privacy and security issues to work out.

This kind of talk was the ever-constant ever-recurring theme at the Web2.0 expo this last week in San Francisco. And this has made me even more excited about RelevantM than ever. If that were even possible.

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