Web 2.0 is more about platform than applications. Does honey (application or platform) attract flies (users) in social networking? My opinion is no (almost 90% of the time). I was never attracted to a social networking platform because of its taste (quality or USPs) but was pulled by my friends. In social networking sites, flies attract flies and honey factor is just not that significant. I was pulled to orkut by friends, I was pulled to linkedin (otherwise I do not like this network at all, it is too complex for me) in similar fashion. Ask yourself why did you join a social networking site and you will get an answer.
| While designing a social networking site always provide enough tools and incentives to attract more and more friends. Once you are able to get a bunch of targeted flies it will attract other flies. This applies to forums, blogs, wikis and all other web 2.0 tools, provided you are making it a social tool than a question-answer, announcement, content site resp. |
I had talked about a similar issue with respect to companies in a lecture (ppt will be made available soon). I explained that why “A pessimistic company (group of pessimistic company) will attract and breed pessimistic employees”. There are other articles that say, “Smart people will go wherever other smart people are”. So concentrate more on tools to attract flies than making honey sweeter.
As usual Great post Aji