An expanded post on 'social networks'
For me the internet is a tool. I appreciate its ability to link me up with people but my primary interest is not in making new best friends - it's in staying abreast with developments in areas that I'm interested in, and finding out stuff I want to know for work or play. I don't care about the online popularity contests. Now in MyWeb, if I save a link, I can't see if anyone outside my contacts has also saved it and therefore, whether they might be potential good new contacts of mine. It relies on finding people through the friendship-based 'degrees of separation' not the shared-interest based 'we share links' like in delicious, where I regularly link-hop to find people whose bookmarks might be worth raiding. And for my internet, the 'degrees of separation' through shared links/interests is way more interesting and useful than going through my buddies.
Friendster, Orkut, etc seem to me to have really failed to stay popular with 'online' types. Once factor is the amount of time it takes to make sure your profile is up to date vs the amount of people you get trying to link up with you who you don't care about. Whereas if you have a blog, you are updating it because you want to talk about a topic you find interesting, then you attract comments via technorati etc, and then you make new connections with true shared interests. A blog is a more creative way of expressing yourself in than a Friendster profile. A lot of people over here use Friendster but they are mostly people I'm pretty disparaging about...and there's obviously a certain class of blogger who falls into the same category ("today I went to the beach and hooked up with this reeeaally cute guy. It was so much fun!!!!!!!! ; ) ")
So, probably what I am trying to say is that there is a network for everyone. If you use the internet to make friends, great to share your social bookmarks via Yahoo, and they can replace those annoying round robin emails of 'urban legends' or 'funny' photos. But for a more 'sophisticated' community I'm really not sure how much use it is going to be. We need to be streamlined with our time and it's easier for me to get a RSS feed from an interesting someone's delicious links, blog or whatever, then if I want to, make a comment on their site, and if they feel like pursuing the correspondence further we can link up. Those emails that say "X wants you to be their friend!" really bug me and clog up my inbox.
Of course, like everyone, if MyWeb really takes off and suddenly everyone who I'm interested in is using it, I will be forced to make the move. Especially if it takes off in a work arena, so as 'everybody who's anybody' is doing it. But judging by my friends, I don't think they are going to be seen dead near the crass graphic design and cheesy friendster-ish air of MyWeb...
Friendster, Orkut, etc seem to me to have really failed to stay popular with 'online' types. Once factor is the amount of time it takes to make sure your profile is up to date vs the amount of people you get trying to link up with you who you don't care about. Whereas if you have a blog, you are updating it because you want to talk about a topic you find interesting, then you attract comments via technorati etc, and then you make new connections with true shared interests. A blog is a more creative way of expressing yourself in than a Friendster profile. A lot of people over here use Friendster but they are mostly people I'm pretty disparaging about...and there's obviously a certain class of blogger who falls into the same category ("today I went to the beach and hooked up with this reeeaally cute guy. It was so much fun!!!!!!!! ; ) ")
So, probably what I am trying to say is that there is a network for everyone. If you use the internet to make friends, great to share your social bookmarks via Yahoo, and they can replace those annoying round robin emails of 'urban legends' or 'funny' photos. But for a more 'sophisticated' community I'm really not sure how much use it is going to be. We need to be streamlined with our time and it's easier for me to get a RSS feed from an interesting someone's delicious links, blog or whatever, then if I want to, make a comment on their site, and if they feel like pursuing the correspondence further we can link up. Those emails that say "X wants you to be their friend!" really bug me and clog up my inbox.
Of course, like everyone, if MyWeb really takes off and suddenly everyone who I'm interested in is using it, I will be forced to make the move. Especially if it takes off in a work arena, so as 'everybody who's anybody' is doing it. But judging by my friends, I don't think they are going to be seen dead near the crass graphic design and cheesy friendster-ish air of MyWeb...
Comments
One of the reasons I think social network websites fail is because of the diversity of our friends. We when recommend friends to other friends, it's a personalized recommendation.
Social networking websites just list all of our friends, but give no context. At least blogs tend to have a narrower focus and attract the same type of friends.
Bloggers can do more to describe this context. Try providing more of a description for your links. Think of the reasons someone might like your blog, and how you can connect them to other sites for the same reasons. A good recommendation will improve the image of both your site and the site you link to.
So, in pharmaceuticals, you are either going big think GlaxoSmithKline or Pfizer or small think biotechs you've never heard of.
The two quirks aer: the "big" licenses the R&D/discoveries of the small, who are though of as more innovative.
some fo the "big" try to recreate the environment of the small, eg GSk which has small biotech-like untis with in its global structure or even google with famously a certain amount of time employees are allowed for blue sky thinking.