Internet Social Networks

What is social networking?

How we use and look at the internet is constantly evolving, and it is becoming more clear what the core benefits of the Internet is really about. The core benefits of the Internet are more about communication and interaction, and users want to exchange ideas and tell their own views as well as hear other users views. (Nielsen//Netratings, 2006-01-23)

Humans naturally form communities in the physical world around common interests, familial relationships, geographic locations, and countless other factors. People are invited into communities, seek out and join them, or stumble into them. In much the same way, social networking is fundamentally about forming communities.

On the Web, powerful new ways of communicating have allowed people to exponentially expand their potential community networks. Blogs, wikis, instant messaging (IM) and chat rooms, and video and photo sharing sites have all created an enhanced networked effect among Internet users that is changing the way people communicate, where and how they congregate, and the way they seek and share information.

Among all age groups, Internet users are increasingly visiting social networking sites—sites that promote networks of relationships around users and information—for entertainment and news, business relationships, consumer product reviews, connecting with friends, dating, and more. But they’re doing more than just visiting. Instead, as members contribute site content in the form of journal entries, photos, videos, and blogs, they become producers, artists, storytellers, and authors. In the end, the value of these sites is derived not from content provided by the site’s owners, but from the emergent relationships among users and the content they create and consume.

Social Networking Challenges

For companies entering this space, social networking presents a number of unique business challenges and associated technical issues.

• Retention and Revenue
  Building and retaining an audience is critical to monetizing a site or seeing return on investment. But today’s Web-savvy consumers are fickle and have lots of choices of how to spend their online time. Site performance, revenue strategies and innovation from user insight have a direct effect on visitor retention, brand favorability, and ad revenue.
• Fast Innovation
  Each user community is somewhat unique, and the site layouts, features, and policies that drive one community to success may be different for the next. The massively interconnected nature of social networking sites is built upon Web 2.0 technologies that enhance interactivity and the responsiveness of user interfaces. These technologies enable the user-driven content model in important ways and make possible to present dynamically updated site information, augmented by embedded photos from one site, next to headlines from another and video from a third. Companies that achieve success at social networking will be the ones that can quickly bring new ideas to market. In short, successful ideas respond to users needs and most user communities are eager to give that information.
• The Right Editorial Control
  Social networking represents a significant transfer of control from site publishers to consumers, creating a number of challenges. Should companies review and approve user content? How will they store and manage the content that users upload? How can companies capture the value from user-generated content without giving up control over their online presence? There’s no single right answer to questions of governance and editorial control over a company’s social networking presence. There are three basic models for managing user-generated content on a site, each with its own place in the social networking landscape: Pre-approval required before publishing; Immediate posting, but with later revision; Moderation handled by the community.