Social Network Design

With social networks popping up left right and centre at the moment, and every mogul in the industry saying that social media and social networks are the way forward, what makes a social network unique? When Myspace first launched back in August 2003 it was pretty much the only social network available, and it had a monopoly on the market up until September 2006 when FaceBook opened it’s doors to the general public. Many people said that it would never catch on the way that Myspace did, but in April 2008 FaceBook overtook Myspace to claim the Social Network crown.

But with the advent of the Web 2.0 philosophy of  ”if you build it they will come” mentality, thousands of social networks srpung up virtually over night. Now you can even create your own social network as easily as you can create a single myspace profile with the introduction of sites such as Ning - so what’s to stop every Tom, Dick and Harry setting up their own social network?

But just as with any web site – everything hinges on design, functionality and usability. Users are getting more and more fickle and disloyal – if a network isn’t giving them what they want, they can just go find another one that does.

Here are three main points to consider when designing a social network;

1) Engage the user quickly.

First impressions are paramount when users have thousands of websites to choose from. Before distracting the user with too many peripheral features, you need to make the core features of your network clear. Make sure there is a very short learning curve for users to be able to add content or change settings so that they can see the results quickly. To continually engage users, some dynamic applications are needed, providing activity notices from other members is a good way to show new users what else they can do on your network without being intrusive.

2) Enable self expression.

The user’s profile page needs to be customisable and offer a variety of options for expression. The profile will reflect the person’s identity, expressing their likes, dislikes, tastes etc. The more self expression available on the profile, the more interactions are possible. The growth of a network is exponentially related to the amount of interaction between the users.

3) Encourage Community Building.

By following the first two points (engaging quickly and enabling self expression) These connections can quickly grow as in a real public setting, users tend to gather together in groups of similar interests or tastes, the same is true in the online world.  As these communities grow, users become vested in the network, and are less likely to stray elsewhere.

These points are the basis of any good social network, designing and developing an interface that enables users to do all of this easily and smoothly is the reason so many start up social networks fail. Not only that but nowerdays you have to offer somthing much MORE than just the ability to interact with people – that’s old news – offering a unique selling point to get users interested and dominate your niche is the most important (and difficult) part of developing your own social network.

As Myspace is arguably “The Daddy” of the Social Networking craze I’ve collected a few examples of some new music social networking sites to compare it too.

Each of these Music Social Networks offer unique services to their users that the others don’t/can’t. Trig, for example, is a combination of Myspace and Digg allowing users to “Trig” their favourite track/artist, Midomi allows you to sing or hum a track through your microphone to search for it instead of a plain old text search, much like Shazam on the mobile phone. Each one offers their users something different than the last. Although after discovering a recent post regarding OoiZiT.com in the Guardian whilst researching, I think they will be the ones to watch in 2009.