I threatened more on Social Networking yesterday. Would I lie?
To nobody’s surprise, Facebook has unveiled their newest toy; Facebook Places lets you “check in” from wherever you are. It’s an obvious attempt to eat Foursquare‘s lunch, and the fact that it plays nice with the heretofore leader in geolocation-based social networking doesn’t change anything. (By the way, so far Facebook Places only works if you use an iPhone)
I’d like to place some emphasis on that “doesn’t change anything” clause.
The problem with most social networking sites is that they don’t actually bring people together; instead, there’s a cacophony of voices screaming “look at me!” and it’s hard to know where to look/listen/pay attention.
Aside: The Answer Guy is working on a new social networking platform that addresses this issue. Have I mentioned that already?.
For social networking to work, there has to be a reason to network with the people you find at your favorite site. We’ve done quite a bit of anecdotal research on the subject, and what we hear over and over is that Facebook is too hard and too busy, Foursquare is little more than a way of asking people to rob your house while you’re out (or YOU, for that matter), and that while most people try one or more social networks they really just don’t get the point.
This week I stumbled upon GetGlue. And it’s silly, but it . . . makes sense. At GetGlue, you “check in” just like on Foursquare, but it isn’t location based. GetGlue instead is a place where you tell people what you are doing. “I’m watching Doogie Howser M.D.“, or “I’m listening to Green Day’s American Idiot“.
In many ways, it’s just as silly as Foursquare, but GetGlue makes sense in the same way a book club does, or taking a class on movies. You meet people, and you know ahead of time that you have something in common. And you talk about it. Or at least the ice has been broken for you enough that you might.
Now to be fair, GetGlue is still a little bit too open, and they have no traction just yet. But at least GetGlue makes sense; they have a reason to exist that goes beyond the benefit of the company that sells advertisements to you, the user.
I can’t say it enough: you need to take social networking seriously in your business plans. Now if more social networks would take you seriously in return, something might just come of all this . . .
