The Industry

Social Networking: The Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid June 04, 2007

The new social networking players, which include Cisco and a multitude of start-ups like Ning, the latest venture of the Netscape co-creator Marc Andreessen, say that social networks will soon be as ubiquitous as regular Web sites. They are aiming to create tools to let ordinary people, large companies and even presidential candidates create social Web sites tailored for their own customers, friends, fans and employees. -New York Times, March 3 2007

First of all, let’s agree that “social networking” is not a new concept in technology, management, or customer relations.

The presumed benefits of social networking technology have already existed in older, less exciting forms: nineties-era message boards, management ropes courses, or product fan clubs. It’s not as glam as “social networking for enterprise”, but we’re talking about the same goals: building human communities to improve corporate productivity, or increase sales.

So why do otherwise savvy executives and entrepreneurs think their advanced 21st century code will change anything about building human communities? It’s because they’re technologists, and they’re buying into the fantasy of making life better through better-organized systems. I’m all for APIs and Web standards and whatnot, but it’s a mistake to think that it’ll make building communities any easier. Community-building is a real-world enterprise that counts its Web site as only one tactic.

In the nineties, there was a brief interlude when businesses building their online presence thought that installing message boards would be an easy, cheap way to “generate content”. They quickly learned that content doesn’t generate itself, and building social communities is a multifaceted, long-term challenge.

Let’s all stop to reflect on that before getting all excited over “Facebook for Monsanto”.