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.