Fred Stutzman nicely differentiates social networks into ego-centric networks and object centric networks. Social Networks like Facebook and Myspace, where the user profile is the center piece of the network, form the ego-centric networks and sites like Flickr and Youtube, where photos and videos form the center piece, are called object-centric networks. He then argues that ego-centric networks are more vulnerable to mass migration than object-centric ones. In order to highlight his claim, he quotes what’s next moment as the tipping point.
Of course, the problem with ego-centric networks lies in the fact network-reestablishment is the main chore. Talk to individuals joining Facebook today - what are they doing? They’re using inbox importers and searching to find their friends/ex-classmates/etc. It’s a game, it’s fun for a bit, but then (say it with me readers) “What’s next?” Yes, the what’s next moment occurs. This is not to say the network becomes useless: no, it’s very useful rolodex, and the newsfeeds introduce concepts of peripheral participation (or social surveillance), but the game is in essence over.
This is very true. I see that more and more in my facebook usage and there are many others who face similar situation. A living example for this phenomenon is Robert Scoble. If we compare his days after he got interested in facebook with today, we can observe this effect. In the early days of his facebook life, he was extremely motivated and he was very active in facebook. In fact, there were moments when people “unfriended” him because information from his profile were filling up the news feeds of those users. Once he hit the ceiling on the maximum friends allowed for any user, he faced with what’s next moment and his facebook activity came down. Even though he is still an active user in facebook, it is nowhere near the peak. When this kinda effect hits upon people in large numbers, we will see massive migration of users and eventual stagnation or death of the social network. Fred’s concept is very interesting and I would like to have some data on this so that we can build upon the concept further.
