The Promise and Peril of Ubiquitous Community

The following is also my column in next week's AdAge.

Over the last five years I have been asked countless times: "Steve, what's the next hot online community?" It seems as though everybody is on the lookout for the successor to MySpace, Twitter or Facebook. Nobody, even in a difficult economic climate, wants to be viewed as a latecomer.

Perhaps as a defense mechanism to avoid being wrong myself, I now give a boilerplate answer that I believe can last. In short, the next big community is not a single destination. Rather, it is going to be everywhere. To paraphrase Forrester analyst Charlene Li, social networking is becoming "like air."

She writes on her blog:

"I thought about my grade-school kids, who in 10 years will be in the midst of social network engagement. I believe they (and we) will look back to 2008 and think it archaic and quaint that we had to go to a destination like Facebook or LinkedIn to 'be social.'

"Instead, I believe that in the future, social networks will be like air. They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be."

This represents a significant shift. For the past 15 years, online communities have primarily existed as stand-alone destinations rather than the web's equivalent of running water or electricity.

The problem, however, is that this model can't scale. Tastes change and people are always migrating to trendier sites-especially as their friends do. As a result, the Internet amber is littered with fossilized communities that once dominated. These former stalwarts include AOL, Angelfire, TheGlobe.com, GeoCities and Tripod.

Community today is a different animal. People now expect it to be part of virtually every online experience. Most media companies now allow users to leave comments or even create profiles. Hundreds of thousands of brands, NGOs and individuals have set up their own social networks on Ning.com. The entire web is going social.

Now, however, connective tissue is emerging to bring these individual points of lights together as virtual constellations. Google and Facebook have each launched systems that allow sites to plug into their architectures to turn them social. The tools equip site owners to enable visitors to tap their existing networks and connections in a way that adds value to the total experience. So imagine a Facebook user who can easily see on Digg.com which stories his or her friends voted up. Or a non-technical site developer who, with a few small lines of code, can add utilities such as reviews, members' galleries and message boards to their sites or applications.

As exciting as this is, the transition of community from a handful of big reach sites to a ubiquitous platform is incredibly disruptive for marketers. It essentially makes social network advertising, which according to anecdotal evidence is already a mixed bag, even more difficult. (And thus monetizing social networks.)

The end result is that marketers will need to shift the way they approach communities. Static advertising is no longer viable. The solution is collaboration. Marketers will need to tap these emerging social operating systems to build meaningful connections through their sites and others before competitors do.

Participation is no longer optional and the fist movers who dedicate resources will win.

Comments

[Meredith]

I actually think the shift in online communities is going towards niche social sites. Sites like Myspace and Facebook are big and their user base is overwhelmingly diverse. I think the trend now is to move towards communities that are based around shared interests, especially with the proliferation of things like ning. Will the walls between these networks break down? Probably. But I think there's always going to be a desire to commune online with people who share your interests. This is actually good news for marketers because niche communities mean more targeted marketing opportunities any way.

[Jeff Barson]

Networks are about connections and communications. Of course they'll be everywhere and always-on, in the same way that your cell phone works. But just like with your cell phone, you won't tolerate a completely open system. I will be, by necessity, an identity based one.

At least that's what we're counting on while we're building it.

[Ming Artist]

Twitter succeeds in the micro blogging 'market' as being the platform and the activity.

Colaberation looks like the future, but it will require a big shift in our thinking from capitlist models.

[David Weiner, PR Newswire]

@Meredith - And what happens when those niche sites aren't niche enough? All of these sites that we define as social right now will become nothing more than widgets to your constant destination (whether that is your email portal, your rss aggregator or your company's home page, etc.). That said, the sites that are sticky for very good reasons can become networks, though not permanent destinations. Look at Marketwatch Community, Reuters Stock Buzz, TD and eTrade's communities, etc. These are great examples of financial 'social networks,' but no one is going to live at these destinations.

We're still a ways away from total fragmentation. Seeing Facebook and MySpace enable it is encouraging.

Great post Steve.

[Scott]

A network that works well on a mobile platform--knows where I am, who within my network is near me, offers recommendations, etc. + the concept behind FriendFeed which aggregates multiple networks gets us closer to the "air" analogy. It's really not that far off. Just waiting for wi-fi networks and handheld usability to catch up.

[nmw]

I think the "social" part is often overemphasized -- what matters alot more (IMHO) is enabling meaningful contacts.

"Meaning" might be (e.g.) person A wants to write a story; Person B wants to read a story -- they could meet at a URL... something like: "stories network". Very similar URLs exist -- many of them are still by and large undeveloped (except to the degree that Google and similar companies earn alot of money from the ppc ads run there).

I feel the social networking that has been happening over the past years is largely due to the fact that no better methods have been developed to match "supply" and "demand" for information. The one-size fits-all algorithms are far too simple for such a complex task.

The recent sale of CNet is very interesting to me in this regard. For example, I have long since been very impressed with the efficacy of download.com as a software search application (enabling developers to "network" with users). CNet also has a large portfolio of other sites, in which they have put alot of though into developing useful communities that serve the information needs of their participants.

But they don't have every word in the book -- I've got a couple too!

At any rate, I strongly agree with Mr. Rubel that networking (or "community") is simply part of being alive (and in that regard, it is indeed quite similar to air) -- and that the paradigm that it only happens after you go through a magical door is anathema to what the Intenet is about (the Internet has no door -- or if it does have one today, it will become evermore insignificant).

;D nmw

[NoLongerMute]

Steve, have no fear my friend, put away your defense mechanisms. Rightness or wrongness is not an intrinsic condition, but a subjective judgment in a personal value system.Nonetheless do not allow the enthusiasm for the technology to completely override human nature. While the future will certainly be more fluid as it becomes easier to navigate between destinations, people will still seek out that home base, the place in which to begin.Watch people play chess, they inevitibly begin with the same three moves. The next hot community won't be "air', it'll be that place that helps people like me join the conversation, and feel comfortable in doing so.