The online scene
Image source. Get your scene T-shirts here.
It’s interesting watching the various people in my life react when I talk about different web services. Some of the more controversial services I talk about are Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook. I get reactions like, “Eww, you’re on Twitter??” and “Facebook just isn’t what it used to be.”
Some people LOVE Twitter. It’s like crack. Some people loathe Twitter. They don’t want to be associated with the crack heads. For Gen Yers, MySpace and Facebook represent the difference between high school and college.
But, I don’t really think about myself as being on Twitter. Twitter is just a service that I use. It’s part of a mix of services that I integrate to stay connected with my friends. I send and receive messages from every service through a single interface. So, I’m thinking who cares which source the message comes from? Who cares which service my friends receive them on?
If I think about it honestly, the tools I use to integrate these services are not widely understood or easily accessible. So, we’re in this temporary moment in time where some users don’t care about the underlying service that carries their messages and some users do. This moment gives time to reflect about why people care so passionately one way or another about the service they use.
IMHO, people are passionately loyal to particular web services because each one supports a specific scene. Musicians. Artists. Burners. Gay. Latino. Geeks. Anime. Your company. Etc.
This isn’t breaking news really. danah boyd was comparing tag clouds between social networks in 2005. Comscore reports about the worldwide distribution of service usage yearly.
Cool, young designer kids would rather be on something like Vimeo than Twitter. SecondLifers prefer to hang out on Plurk. Burners like to congregate on Tribe.
What’s the point here?
It has a lot of implications for markets. Markets are formed around communities. Communities form around people. Often times communities are formed around a small number of very specific people.
That means if you’re building a service, you’ll want your strategy to be tailored for the scene whose party your going to host. Think about their needs in terms of functionality. Think about who the cool kids are amongst that crowd and who will invite everyone to the party. And, then think about how to be a good host.
If you’re trying to hang out with a particular crowd, ask around about where they’re hanging out. See what kind of interactions they’re into. Pay attention to times when it looks like the party is moving and be a joiner.
It’s also interesting to speculate about how scenes will be formed in the future when integration services kill the need for service monogamy. Jason Calacanis recently stated that he is retiring from blogging. His states that he wants to build a deeper relationship with fewer people. He wants to get back to his roots. He wants to find his scene again. Jason turned to email for that solution, which I think is silly. Self assembled networks do feel like the right move, though. Much of the functionality that we needed social networks for is now readily available as part services like Utterz and iPhone apps. I’m excited to see where self-assembled MMS groups will go.
When you’re out there on the Intarwebs, don’t forget about the fact that the online world has scenes just like the offline world. They should be regarded here as they are there.
Comments
Ok so it’s obvious when you’re talking about me… but what it comes down to for me is that I have my own site. It can be whatever I want it to be and I don’t have to rely on a service that will only be a fad for a short time.
I guess it’s strange that I have these opinions considering I am a ‘young designer kid’ and I am on the internet pretty much 24/7 but I feel like services like twitter are limiting and slow compared to what I actually want/need.
I totally feel you, Chris. I think some of your comments have helped me look past the siloed walls of the social service du jour. I think the next wave of socializing online will be a series of integrated web services that intersect around a property that you own, like your website. I’m keeping my eye on players like Utterz that are working to integrate multiple services and providing group MMS. The next hot social network won’t be owned by any one organization, much in the same way the Internet isn’t owned by any one organization.
The future (and I am working on something like it now) is private communities. No registration. Eff “connecting with everyone ever” because the fact is that I don’t care about anyone else… they’re just noise.
I want to be part of Blood-Utterz.
Where every time you message they milk the cow so much it bleeds.
Get it?
I can always count on Diggles for a good line crossing comment. Love you man.
I think exclusivity is the new transparency. That’s a bit of an oversimplification on my part, but we are learning that we don’t want to be open to every single connection that comes along. We also learned from social media that many wonderful connections can come from places we couldn’t predict. I would hate to see the web devolve into an insular pack of cliques, but I don’t think that’s what you mean either. I don’t think public communities will die, they’ll just come into balance with private ones.
Justin, exactly. We’ll have both and they will both fill a need. Thanks for this thought provoking discussion.