Personalization of Social Networks

In a recent article in NYtimes.com the technological landscape of social networks and its future are discussed. The author states that large social networking sites like MySpace & Facebook have attracted scores of people with dissimilar profiles and interests. New social networking players are creating social Web sites tailored to cater to niche interests. So, how are these niche social networking sites differentiating themselves from the large, monolithic sites?

Differentiation
The most common differentiation strategy of niche social networking sites is to segment the market - demographies (teens, tweens, singles, etc.), interests (travel, stock investing, etc.), affiliations (political, business, etc.), geographies (country, city, etc.), profiles (language, etc.) and so on. These new social networking sites incorporate features relevant to the market segments they cater to. So, in that sense the site is personalized to the collective needs of its user community.

Personalization
But, what about personalization of the social network at a more individual level? Many social networking sites offer users display preferences such as 'skin settings,' and 'profile settings' for personalization. Other sites feature filtering systems to display content of relevance and interest to the user.

In general, the personalization that most state of art social networking sites - both large and niche - feature is of a very rudimentary, even inconsequential nature. There is a need to take personalization to the next level. Sites have to go beyond letting users control what they get to see or what they display in their profile pages.

Future
Personalization in the future will focus on what users can do online in their social networks. This creative freedom will pertain to mixing-n-matching media in new ways - for example, publishing a music video with its music sheet and lyrics. It will entail displaying personal profiles in unique ways, such as publishing a list of favorite movies or rock n'roll artistes in the personal page.

Social networking sites in the future will permit personalized collaboration. For instance, some members in a social network might have editorial control over the content that others in the group might post. Personalization of communication channels is another area that social networks will focus on in the future.

Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Cylive - a social application that empowers users to network in highly personalized ways.

The Future of Social Networking

Ever since the Web2.0 phenomenon, the favorite flavor of the current technology trend (at least in the consumer Internet space) has without question been social networking. Technology pundits (despite a fair share of detractors) have harped ad infinitum and ad nauseam on how the "read-write Web (or Web 2.0)" is going to revolutionize the Internet. Now that people (entrepreneurs, geeks, capitalists, professionals, businessmen, netizens, etc.) are all busy either churning out or forming social networks, where is the trend headed? What is social networking going to morph into?

Segmentation
Several bloggers have written about the segmentation of social networking (Alex Iskold; Wilhelm; etc.). Popular social networking sites are positioned to serve different segments of society. Common approaches of differentiation include media types (horizontal - e.g., Flickr for photos), industry verticals (vertical - e.g., stockpickr for finance), geographies (e.g,. Mixi in Japan), interests (e.g, Dogster for dog-owners), and myriad others.

Fragmentation
Now, each of us has a profile consisting of hundreds of attributes - sex, age, marital status, race, color, religion, caste, language, city, state, region, country, education, profession, employment, interests, hobbies, likes, dislikes, etc. So, eventually would I be required to network in a 100 different sites to reach out to other people who share my profile in some way?

So, with the ongoing fragmentation, when will people get overdosed on social networking? When will people get sick of splitting themselves into multiple user-IDs and passwords in the virtual world? I would say sooner than you think.

Deja Vu
The origin of social networking applications can be traced to the "online groups" and "forums" phenomena. While online groups are primarily geared towards private groups, forums are better geared for public (published) conversations. Social networks somehow appear to me to weld the two concepts together. Key differences though are that social networks enable non-disruptive public conversations and content-centric conversations. The icing on the cake is the democratization of the network with ratings and recommendations.

Analyzing the amoebic explosion of social networking sites, I cannot help drawing a parallel with the historical lessons of the previous boom (and the subsequent bust). Indeed, what we are witnessing today in the C2C (consumer-to-consumer) or P2P (peer-to-peer) space of "social networks" seems to be very similar to that seen in the 1990s in the B2C (and even B2B) realm. The social networking fragmentation is eerily similar to the online shopping sites of Web1.0. The companies that survived the earlier bust were those that consolidated quickly and offered one-stop services in their respective spaces.

Future
The exponential mushrooming of social networking sites is the result of the mad scramble for establishing niches in Web2.0. It is my belief that eventually sanity has to take over and the space has to witness convergence. Indeed, the future of social networking lies in the consolidation of the space.

Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Cylive.

Non-mainstream Social Publishing

The last few years have seen a plethora of social applications mushroom all over the Internet. Besides featuring the customary "social networking" elements, many of these applications are centered around Web content sharing and publishing. But, almost all these applications are focused on "mainstream media types".

So, what is "mainstream media type"?
Most social networks revolve around multimedia content publishing such as images (e.g., Flickr), videos (e.g., Youtube), music (e.g., mp3.com), etc. Weblogs (e.g., Blogger) and bookmarks (e.g, Digg), while not necessarily being "multimedia" type, are extremely popular in the "social networking / publishing" realm. So, by virtue of being most popular amongst Web2.0 sites, these media types (images, videos, music, blogs, bookmarks, etc.) can be classified as "mainstream media types".

Then, what would be "non-mainstream media type"?
Besides the "mainstream media types," a lot of content on Web fall into unique use types. An example of such content is DYI (Do-it-yourself) or how-to, which might be composed with multiple media types (say rich text with a video and multiple pictures). Such "hybrid media" content can be classified as "non-mainstream media type."

Another class of Web content that might be considered "non-mainstream" is tabular content. For example, a comparison of X-Box and PS3 can obviously be presented in text format. However, if the same comparison is presented in tabular format, it is easier for the reader to comprehend the information. It is easy to author such a comparison on a Webpage (or Web log) with software particularly with enterprise content management applications. there are no Web applications that provide tools for publishing content in tabular format in a social context. Other examples of content that are better rendered in tabular format are "Oscar picks," "playoff predictions," and so on.

Is there a need for "social non-mainstream media"?
It is arguable whether there is a need for social (non-mainstream) media sharing & publishing. However, it has to be remembered that communities are engaging in such conversation (typically via e-mail) through groupware, forums and bulletin-boards today. So, "non-mainstream-oriented" Web2.0 provides an opportunity for communities to engage in that conversation in more meaningful and efficient ways.

Enabling "social networking" centered around non-mainstream media is also about according users the freedom to "express" and "congregate" over the Web in ways not possible earlier.

Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Cylive - a platform that attempts to empower users with the ability to "share and publish" any content in a collaborative context.

How is Cylive Useful?

Since the time we launched Cylive Beta a few days ago people have asked me what the site is all about. On hearing details of the application, most have tried pigeon-holing the application into an existing Web2.0 space. And, they have had difficulty doing so because the application is very unique and different from what exists out there!

So, here is a little 1-on-1 about what Cylive is about.

"One Roof" Concept
In the physical world, most of my belongings - books, CDs, DVDs, albums, magazines, files, etc. - are all at home under one roof. All items are pretty much stored, shared, displayed and showcased from the same location. The same principle pretty much applies to digital content on my personal computer.

So, why is it that in the virtual realm of the Internet, I have to upload my pictures into Flickr, videos into YouTube, bookmarks into Digg, blogs onto Blogger and so on, with each site requiring a separate ID / password? And, if I have to share my "digital assets" with friends and family, I have to either form groups on these sites, or resort to some good-old link-forwarding via e-mail. Not at all elegant!

We developed Cylive to function as a single destination on the Web for storing, sharing, publishing and distributing any digital stuff.

Publishing Freedom
Imagine watching "Planet Earth" on the Discovery Channel without getting an insight into the effort and the technology behind each clip. Wouldn't such a "commoditized" clip lack some of its appeal? Unfortunately, social media publishing sites - Picasa, YouTube, and the like - all adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. This means I am forced to publish, for instance, each of my photos with just a title, a brief description and some tags. A picture may be worth a 1000 words; regardless, a 1000 words may still be required to describe it.

And, what if I wish to share an album of my best photos along with a audio clip attached to each photo? Or, publish a recipe in my blog with a photo to go with each step? Isn't technology supposed to enable such "out-of-the-box" creativity?

So, we designed Cylive to support personalized media publishing. In other words, Cylive permits users to remix media-types - thus enabling "media mashups."

Content Diversity
Last year I tried publishing a table (of Web2.0 memetic attributes) in this blog. I realized there was no easy way of dong it. In fact, I discovered that "social applications" are all geared towards mainstream media types, i.e., audio, video, photos, etc. So, if I have to pubish and share my Oscar picks with my buddies I had to get my hands dirty in cumbersome HTML code. In other words, I had to become a HTML geek. Why?

Therefore, we architected Cylive in a way that makes it real easy for a layman like me to publish any information in a structured manner.

Shades of "Sharing" Gray
Just to make sure I had exposed the richness of Cylive in this blog entry, I wanted my colleague (and fellow Cylive co-founder) to preview it. So, I forwarded a copy of this text (via e-mail) for his critical review. Evidently, the "social" element of Blogger applies only to the 'sharing' of published content.

Most "social media applications" are deemed 'social' because they permit a two-way dialog between the producer and the consumer. But, what about collaborative content creation, i.e., simply co-creation? And, I am not just talking about blogging wikis (or blikis), but also rich media here.

Thus, we created Cylive to serve as a collaborative platform. Content owners can control "who gets to do what and when with content." For instance, all the invitees in my New Year Eve party can upload snaps (captured in their respective cameras) directly into a common photo album on Cylive.

Conclusion
In marketing and Web2.0 parlance Cylive is a "social publishing and content-management" platform. Forgetting the geek-speak, it really is the "site of the free" - it gives you the FREEDOM to express yourself in any way you deem fit. Come, take a test drive and find out how easy it is to become a "multimedia" Web publisher on Cylive!

Cylive Launch

I am very excited about our recent launch of Cylive (http://www.cylive.com/ - pronounced ‘sy-liv’) - a "social publishing and content management" platform. Cylive gives you “one roof” for ALL your digital stuff – photos, music, videos, bookmarks, articles, reviews, and MUCH MORE. You are now able to keep ALL your digital items in ONE place. You are always in control of what you do with your stuff and how & when you do it.

On Cylive – the “home of your digital stuff” – you can safely store ALL your private and confidential information. You can share ANY of your digital items with friends and family. You can also publish ANY stuff online and showcase it on the Internet for everyone to view...all with the click of a few buttons!

With your “digital home” at Cylive, you can work with your friends and family to jointly produce and publish digital material. And, you have the POWER to create material in your own new and unique way. For instance, you can create a photo album with a voice clip attached to each photo in the album about how and when you took the snap.

You can also control who can do what and when with your stuff. For instance, you can assign ‘add photos’ privilege to everyone in your family, but only give ‘view photos’ right to your friends. These privileges can be specified individually for your contacts on Cylive.

Summary:
So what can Cylive do for you? It is the easiest way for you to:

• Create, organize and share ANY digital stuff;
• Share and co-create content with your family, friends, or groups;
• Plan, organize and coordinate your personal & group activities;
• Publish your or view, rate & comment on other users’ thoughts and opinions;
• Express your ratings and recommendations on any topic – books, movies, etc.;
• Seek answers to your questions from other Cylive users;
• Discover user reviews of various things and places, such as restaurants, vacation destinations, etc.;
• Identify and connect with people who share your interests and hobbies;
• Store safely and access your private and confidential information online.