Opening the floor up to the Addictiveness of Online Social Networks

[Julian Cole]

Faris just blogged about the addictiveness of Online Social Networks at ‘Continuous Partial Presence’.

I just thought I would once again open it up to people suggestions as to why Online Social Networks (Myspace, Facebook, Account Plan.ning) are so addictive?

Thank you to everyone who posted about ‘Why Second Life will fail?’, this gave me a great artillery in a recent debate that I had with someone about brands getting involved in Second Life.

I think this forum can be a great chance to get a lot of knowledgable heads on the one topic nutting out really good arguments for and against new trends.


Here is my contribution to the addictiveness of Online Social Networks


Here is a model of Stages of Interaction/Usage with Online Social Networks. This shows why people are still using their online social network accounts religiously.

At the moment there are two stages I have found for the uses people find with online social networks.

Stage 1: Lighting the fire
The initial introduction to the site, Members are hooked by the fact that you can catch up with all you weak ties in a indirect easy way. A lot of the communication is based around this ‘Oh, I can’t believe you are on here as well (facebook), how have you been? We should catch up for a beer/coffee soon’

Stage 2: Stoking the fire
Is where the initial looking for friends has either reached its capacity within that social network or you a complementing your offline interaction. This communication is based around your offline interaction acting as an extension of your offline self. This communication is filled with ‘Great catching up with you today, what was the name of that shop you said I would like’ or my favourite ‘You were so drunk last night’.

Stage 3: ???????
Don’t know but I am sure there is one. Anyone got any clues.
There is an overlap of the stages, I still find myself in Stage 2 finding weak ties and saying ‘Haven’t seen you for ages, lets catch up’ but I would say most of the communication is around this extension of my offline social behaviour.

Burn out stage:
However like my account on Account Plan.ning, I lost interest because I could not reach Stage 2. I was not seeing anyone from the online social network, offline. However I have now found a new use for the Ning and that is this forum

Julian Cole

[John Grant]

I agree, the most appealing thing about this group, apart from as an address book (easy access to some few people I know vaguely and may well want to contact/meet) is the potential to debate stuff.

I'm toying with an idea for a social network where people log their carbon emissions reductions/actions and your friends group has a subtotal/agreed targets. Mostly because i dont think those big schemes like globalcool and wereinthistogether will ever achieve critical mass (they tend to hover at 2000 members total). It would prob just be like .ning or similar with an embedded calculator. Freecycle was built using Yahoo groups. What I'm trying to get to to think this through is exactly what you are asking:
- what makes a social network more compelling/sticky/addictive?
- what is the role of an alibi interest (eg music, going to college, or indeed planning)?
- what contributes to their spread; may be a different factor altogether?

I dont have any ready answers beyond a vague sense of what works for me

I'm looking forward to seeing this thread develop it could be really helpful.

Dino? Faris?...? :J

[farisyakob]

Hello mate,

I put a few thoughts down in the post mentioned above. I guess there is also an underlying requirement for a reason to keep going back - some kind of aperiodic reinforcement is needed otherwise you hit the burn out phase described above.

The vertical nature i think is interesting - maybe this ties back into what jenkins said about transmedia - you need to 1] bring people together and 2] give them something to do.

In terms of spread - well if I knew that I'd be a viral factory ;-p but ultimately I think facebook works because the funcationality is awesome - it all works beautifully. But as to why it suddenly 'tipped' recently, beyond the obvious, unhelpful idea of critical mass, I'm not sure....

[Carl Moggridge]

Forrester's new Social Technographics report is out at the moment. Which is worth trying to get your hands on.

For me a successful social network is about having that critical mass of people at each stage of the 'participation ladder' as they call it. I see it as more of a cycle though to be honest, take this network for example. There are probably lots of spectators, lots of collectors, but lacking a few creators and critics. In order to turn spectators into critics you need more creators. In order to get more spectators you need more creators and critics. In order to turn inactives into spectators you need more spectators to invite others etc etc. Essentially social networks need to reach that 'tipping point' where a high proportion of people 'create' rather than 'consume'.

[Julian Cole]

Hey Carl,

Thanks for the link to the Social Technographics, I found this article really beneficial.

Would have to agree with your sum up of the 'climbing up the ladder',a point I think they missed out on in their exec summary.


I think that the Social Tecnographics is great for describing this Ning. However I think for a entertainment social networks like facebook and myspace it struggles to describe what is going on. I think it would be top heavy in those sites because everyone is a creator when they make their website. They stay at those high levels by creating content, (commenting with other people in the OSN).

Thanks for the lead!

[Ashley Brown]

Julian, I think the points you've made are worthy and raise a lot of other issues regarding why people interact with social networks and what experiences they hope to get from being involved with such a network. There are too many issues here to comment on in depth, however from a digital planner’s perspective; I think the most important point for me is what keeps community members (and ultimately consumers) interested.

In my experience there are 3 key aspects to social networking that maintain user interest. These are quite basic but ultimately they are 1) a sense of community 2) the development of friendships 3) ease with which they can interact with other users and ultimately learn from them (I think networks such as this one are particularly prevalent to this last point)

These attributes must be at the forefront of a planner’s mind if they are thinking of placing their client’s product in this environment as there are many pitfalls that could be disastrous to a brand's image in this fragile and wholly un-policed arena. Although the responsibility of social networks is to monitor and check that comments and blogs are professional and friendly (to an extent) it is impossible to rein in a debate that may rage from the presence of a certain brand and their failure to interact in a way that suits the nature of a social network. If such a situation did arise around a brand then this could be highly detrimental to their image and damage their reputation amongst those they are trying to target.

I think what I'm trying to say here is that although social networks appear to be a fantastic source for highly targeted advertising and brand association, if a brand does not follow the unspoken rules and etiquette which governs a users experience, (or uses such walled gardens as Bebo and Pizco (who's audiences tend to be of younger generation)) they are leaving themselves open to attack from all sides.

[Julian Cole]

I love this point you make about etiquette in online social networks for brands. How many companies have we seen just crash and burn through blatant disregard for the unspoken rules of OSN's and all new media (Wal Mart, PS2 and Blogs, the numerous brands with dead Secondlife buildings)

I think it is such an interesting place for brands to be in. One of the most interesting question to me is, who does the consumer think they are speaking to when they post a comment on a branded myspace page like Pepsi or Adidas.

Hypothetically if they think they are speaking directly to the brand, what other communication channel has this ever happened in before?

This is the purest form of communcation between the brand and the consumer. This would be the next stage of anthropomorphistion of the brand.

[Michael Johnston]

I just got sent this http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070525/facebook_unveils_pla...

I think facebook have realised they need to keep bringing people back. So why pretend they can do it all. Collaboration and open source will be very interesting

[Oke Mueller]

Hi,

I am looking at the addictvness of online social activities from the perspective of gaming within our work for PlayStation's new "Home" platform.

I think stage three is "The task". Like in real life interaction is not only done for the sake of interacting. As goups we tend to "do stuff" rather than just "exchange stuff".

This is why interactive gaming platforms like World of Warcraft are so highly successfull (even based on monthly subscriptions). And this is why those MMORPGs are so addictive. In Germany there are now two "Media Therapy" centers, helping online addicts to get back in contact with the real world. Quite scary, but understandable.

Looking at exchange based online networks it seems that many are missing a "reason" to be there, because there is not task that delivers some level of self-fullfillment as a reward.

Maybe this sparks some thoughts.

Cheers,

Oke