Check out this talk at MoMo Amsterdam by Jaiku’s Jyri Engeström.
Jyri identifies the increasing number of sites on the Alexa top 100 based on user generated content as what he calls a “megatrend swiping over web services.” He lays out three topics that he covers in this talk:
1. The case for social objects. What is the motive and driver for actually interacting online?
2. Five principles for building services around them. He formulates working principals for how to create your own site. How do you create a compelling offering online?
3. His take on the next wave
He uses social networks as an example, and examines the tendency for social networks to flourish and die out (FireFly, SixDegrees, the floundering Friendster). Why do so many of these services fail? How do we predict which ones will actually sustain themselves?
He uses Russell Beatties public cancellation of his LinkedIn account as an example. LinkedIn, at that time, was merely another social network. It was a game to see how many contacts each person could rack up, and he who has the most contacts wins.
The sites that work are the sites that are built around social objects. For LinkedIn, this social object is now jobs. Flickr did it with photos. Delicious did it with bookmarks. Amazon did it with books. The focal point of MySpace is music.
So then the question becomes, how do you build a service around social objects? He answers this with a quick checklist:
1. What is your object? How is it defined? How quickly can you understand what this object is?
2. What are your verbs? How do people act upon those objects? Can you create a new verb?
3. How can people share the objects? Can I email a permalink?
4. What is the gift in the invitation? What does the person you invite get by joining?
5. Are you charging the publishers of the spectators? Basic service should be free, people will pay to establish their own space. Charge the publishers.
His answer on disruptive technology is good, but his answer on “what will be the next big thing?” is rather lacking. The preconditions of a disruptive innovations are if the solution is simpler, cheaper, or if it frees the user from inconvenience. He believes that microblogging is part of the “Mass Starbucksization of Nearly Everything.” Social objects to go. He also says that it is like blogging for people with nothing to say.
I can see the angle of microblogging. I previously viewed it as a blogging replacement, but I get a better picture of it now and where it could fit in holistically. It doesn’t have any of the intrinsic values of a normal blog, it has a much more reduced shelf life. It is disposable blogging.
Jyri leaves us with these questions for your own services:
Is it free?
Is it quick and easy?
is it cross-device and multi channel?
Is it everyday?
Does it bring people closer together?
Comment (1)
That’s a funny and relevant quote: it is like blogging for people with nothing to say. There’s an interesting article in New York magazine from about… 4 months? back that posits that the “new internet” has as its backbone, narcissistic young people with low self esteem who are desperately trying to prove themselves as “interesting.” I ditched Twitter after 30 minutes because I couldn’t deal with the flood of banality. Some people thrive on it, but that’s soap-opera stuff. Me, I need relevancy filters, not more self-indulgency that ends up being sms-plan hogging narcissistic spam.