 |
 |
 |
In the physical world, we derive social status from things like our jobs, our friends, the houses we live in, the cars we drive, and the gadgets we carry. As we move farther into the Internet century, all of that will change. Soon, it won’t matter whether you own a Lexus or wear Birkenstocks. What will matter is which social networks you belong to and what other members of that network think of you.
Social networks form the heart of what digital hipsters call Web 2.0, an assortment of sites where users generate the site’s content and determine what other people see when they visit. The classic example is youtube.com. Say that on youtube.com you post a video of something funny your cat did. Other members offer comments and rate it. The higher the video’s rating, the more likely it will show up in searches for “funny cats.” Before long, you’re part of the Amusing Feline Group and sharing grooming tips for your cat with other youtube.com regulars. That’s a social network.
Daniel Tynan’s most recent book is Computer Privacy Annoyances (O’Reilly).
If you don’t belong to some kind of social network, you soon may not belong anywhere. Fortunately, there’s a vast and growing selection of networks built around all kinds of interests: business (linkedin.com, ryze.com), news (digg.com), movies (flixster.com), music (ruckus.com, virb.com), social activism (change.org), student life (facebook.com, bebo.com), photographs (flickr.com, photobucket.com), or a little bit of everything (myspace.com, tribe.net, del.icio.us).
Some of the best social networks develop almost as an afterthought. For instance, take lala.com, a site where you can swap your old CDs. You sign up and list the CDs in your collection and the ones you wish you had. When someone requests one of your discs, you ship it to that person; a few days later you get one from your wish list in return. Total cost: $1.75 per trade, which covers shipping costs and lala.com’s commission.
But lala.com is more than just a cheap way to fill up your iPod: It’s a way to learn about new artists and find other people who are just as nuts for The Knack as you are. Lala.com CEO Bill Nguyen says he had no intention of building a social network, he just wanted to create the online equivalent of a used record store. But by interacting with other lala.com members, he rekindled his own passion for music and discovered bands he now loves.
This combination of community and commerce will fuel the next generation of social networks. A good early example of this is esnips.com, whose nearly two million members congregate around a wide range of interests, from music and videos to art and karaoke. Besides sharing content and interacting with each other, esnippers can use the site’s e-commerce tools to sell their videos, photos, music, and artwork. The goods for sale range from 99-cent song downloads to $10,000 diamond rings.
If you’ve never heard of esnips.com, it’s probably because 80 percent of its 10 million monthly visitors live outside the U.S. But that’s likely to change. Yael Elish, CEO of the site, says that esnips.com traffic is growing 8 percent per week. She adds that most members are older and better educated than the folks you’ll typically find on, say, myspace.com.
As with lala.com, the sense of community and shared passion is the secret to esnips’ appeal. “For [our members], the Net is the only place they can find other people who share the same passions,” says Elish. “Finding someone who likes the same things you do is a very big deal.”
My advice: If you want to get socially linked in the Internet century, brush up on your typing and video skills. It’s likely they’ll serve you better in the long run.
