The Google+ Launch and the Future of Social Networks

If you’ve read many of my posts on the future of social networks, you’ll know that my view is based around social networks being an extension of our interactions and networks in our real lives. To me, the introduction of Google+ has been very interesting to watch, and I feel it has confirmed my views in a lot of ways.

On Facebook as contacts I have real friends, family, and contacts I know through business/tech. Of these three groups, the one that I communicate by far the most with is my real friends. Facebook is a perfect platform for communicating with them – everything about it makes it a great way to communicate. It’s also a great place for me to communicate with family, especially since my family is spread over the globe. But although I have contacts in the technology and business world, I don’t communicate with them much on Facebook at all.

Why is that? There is no technical reason behind it. It’s to do with the mindset, perception, and value of the network. For some reason, my perception of Facebook means I am inclined to use it to interact mainly just with real friends and family. To me, it seems slightly weird to communicate with people in my professional life in the same place as I communicate with my close friends.

I would bet that a lot of other people feel the same as me in that respect.

On Google+ as contacts I have real friends, family, and contacts I know through business/tech. Sound familiar? It’s mostly the same contacts that I have on Facebook. However, the people that I communicate with through Google+ is entirely different to who I communicate with through Facebook. On Google+ I’ve been communicating almost exclusively with tech/business people. I haven’t posted a single status update or photo or link that isn’t in some way to do with the tech world.

This is what I mean by how the mindset, perception, and value of the network shapes the groups that I communicate with through it. There isn’t a real reason for me to communicate with these different groups on different networks, when I’m connected to them both on both networks. But because Google+ was pitched initially to tech early adopters, it immediately gained value to other people involved in the technology industry because you could find everyone else in that network on it. But also, because it’s an existing large tech company who has created it, it has a mindset and perception targeted to the technology industry. Also, as I wrote about the other day, the 18+ age limit has contributed to this perception people get of Google+.

My view on social networks is that in a few years time we may have ten networks, each with 100million users. The networks are defined by people’s interests, location, values, beliefs, and preferences. Your network will be a representation of who you are as a person, and what kind of networks you are a member of in real life. I’ve written extensively on this in the past. And to me, the launch of Google+ has shown that people are responsive to this concept. A lot of people whose lives are dedicated to the tech industry are now solely using Google+, because it better represents who they are, and all the people they want to communicate with are on it. On the other hand, Joe Average Facebook User may never use Google+ because it doesn’t fit with his mindset, and it doesn’t give him any value over Facebook.

I’m extremely interested to hear others’ thoughts on this topic. I’ve got my thesis, but again, the reason I blog is to get feedback and hear others’ opinions. So, please do leave your thoughts in the comments or flick me an email.

Why The 18+ Age Restriction Is Yet Another Smart Move By Google

Last night I was asked for my opinion on whether I think Google’s choice to restrict its users to 18+ only was a good or a bad move. This was in response to a post on The Next Web where a teenager outlined why the age restriction would be bad for Google+ in the long-run.

Perhaps surprisingly, I completely disagree with the premise of the article. I think it’s an incredibly smart move by Google to put an age limit of 18+. Not only will it help keep the press about them more positive, but it will turn G+ into a more “mature” environment. I wrote briefly in a comment on that TNW post about why I think it’s smart by Google, but thought I’d elaborate here.

When you look at all other social networks on the planet, teenagers have been very quick to pick up on them and start using the services early on. Because of that, many of these networks have in some ways a “teen-feel” by the time many other people jump on board. And from talking to many adults about it, I know that some of them find it weird being on the same network as a lot of teenagers. Yes, it’s an age perception thing. But heck, can you imagine some of the people who are now using Google+ actively ever using MySpace? Or even Facebook? The current Argentinian President is on G+. Huge amounts of Executives are using G+. It’s a serious network for serious people.

Because it’s been turned into a serious network from the start, Google has been able to pitch it towards the people at the top of society. I’m sure a lot of these people now using Google+ have wanted to use previous social networks, but they somehow just didn’t feel comfortable using them – security/privacy is one issue, but also it’s how they’ll be perceived when they use the networks. For some reason it simply doesn’t look right having high-up politicians and executives using the same social network as 11 year old Justin Bieber lovers.

And by having the people at the top of society using this network, G+ has everywhere in the world to grow into. It’s partly why Facebook grew so fast – they targeted the influential people at Harvard. But still, they targeted young people. And I think that’s restricted their growth. With G+, and their targeting of the most influential people in all of society, everyone else can start using it to follow suit.

There are other benefits. The quality of information on G+ is far superior to any other social network I’ve ever used. Quora actually comes close because it has the same “mature” feel about it, but G+ is even better. We have all of these influential people enjoying using a new network, and investing time in it, therefore the increase in quality of content is remarkable.

I have no idea whether Google has placed the age restriction on G+ for privacy reasons or actually for some of the reasons I’ve written about here. But either way, I think they should keep it that way and not backtrack on it.

However, as someone who technically doesn’t meet the age requirement for G+ (I’m 16), I would like to see them build in some ability for people under-age to become “endorsed” to join the network. I highly doubt this will happen in reality, but I feel I should at least mention it. I have no idea why I haven’t been kicked off of G+ yet, especially considering the fact that I’ve made my real age public on my Google profile. A friend of mine, who created his account at the same time and also has a public profile, wasn’t allowed to join. I can’t think of a reason why Google would individually select some users who are under-age but can continue to use the service – although I’d very much like it if they did do that.

So here’s hoping I don’t get kicked off after writing this post. But even if I do get booted, I’ve got to give it to Google that they’re playing things bloody smart. Let’s hope they keep it that way.

Introducing Duo: The Couple’s Network That Wants To Save Your Personal History

Those of you who have read a lot of my stuff will know that I’m a little nostalgic, and am scared of not being able to look back on my life when I’m older. A few months ago I did a guest post for ReadWriteWeb, where I talked about how digital information has a lower perceived value, and is therefore not being stored or archived by individuals. In my opinion, the consequences of this are many, and my entire generation will grow up without the ability to remember parts of their life when they were younger. Paul Carr from TechCrunch wrote a response to me, saying that I should get out a pen and paper and write down stuff – which I’ve been doing.

However, I hate pens and paper. I’ve grown up with the Internet. I’ve grown up with the cloud, with the ability to access my stuff from anywhere. I hate that if I want to remember something I’ve written in a diary, I have to have the diary on me, and then flick through all the pages in it until I find what I’m looking for. I want to be able to search for things. I want to be able to collaboratively record the details of my life with the people who I’ve been doing things with. After a few months with pen and paper, I can safely say it just doesn’t quite cut it. But thank you Paul all the same for encouraging me to give it a try!

Of all the parts of our personal histories that we may regret not being able to look back on, I think first would come our relationships. Our relationships define our lives. And even in my few years, I’ve had time to become nostalgic about a past relationship I’ve had, and subsequently regretted the fact that I could’t find any of the communication I had with that person. As I also wrote in that ReadWriteWeb guest post, people used to write letters to each other – and they then kept them. The difference in the 21st century is that because we communicate with people in so many different places, from Facebook to Email to instant messengers, we can never go back and find the things we’ve sent and received.

I finished that RWW post with a call for Silicon Valley’s magicians to find a solution. But I’m also not one to sit back and let others do the work (especially when there may be profit to be made!). So, I got thinking.

Fast forward a few months, and Duo is born. Duo is the place on the Internet for couples, that allows them to communicate personally and in a simple way, and then have their communication accessible in a browsable manner forever.

Duo was co-founded by Michael Bergman and I – Bergman is a young Swede who is an incredible developer, and someone who I know will always do an amazing job of everything he does. We’ve both been working hard for the past couple of months to get a beta of Duo up, and we are nearing that stage. Hence this blog post, and the Duo name becoming a bit more visible on the Internet. (Twitter here, Facebook here, Tumblr here).

If you’re interested in hearing more about Duo and being notified when we launch, follow us on the above links, and also enter your email address on www.duoboard.com.

We hope to have a private beta up within the next month.

Obviously the product’s success depends on user feedback – so if you think it’s something you’d find value in, and you’d be willing to try it out and give us your feedback, just let me know in the comments or send me an email and I’ll get one of the early beta invites to you.

Thanks for reading, and hope you’ll spread the word and give it a try when we launch!

The Three Aspects To The Filter Bubble

A couple of months ago I wrote a post titled “Why blogs/websites may lead to a narrower world view“. I argue that because it is so easy for us to self-curate the Internet to solely receive information that agrees with our view of the world, we will never discover new information or ways of looking at things. I felt that it would be damaging to society.

Since then, I’ve started reading a book called The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. His thesis is largely the same as what I wrote about in that blog post, although he comes at it more from the angle of personalization of the Internet by companies.

In his introduction chapter, he outlines the three key things that make the filter bubble on the Internet different to any kind of filter bubble we’ve seen previously, and describes why they may be dangerous to society. I thought I’d just put them here, and explain a bit about them.

1. You’re alone in the bubble.

If you look at previous bubbles, like the bubble that you’re put inside when you watch TV, there are always other people in the same bubble as you. If you watch CNN, you’re in the same filter bubble as everyone else who is watching CNN at that moment as well. But now, on the Internet, everyone is completely alone inside their own filter bubble. Because the Internet is personalized to every individual, no one else is inside the same filter bubble as you. Only, most people don’t know this and they think that the way the Internet looks to them is also how it looks to everyone else.

2. The bubble is invisible.

On the Internet you know what you’re searching for, or you know what website you’re looking at. But you don’t actually know why you’re shown the results that you’re shown. You don’t know what information about you has been used to display the results you’re seeing, or even if the correct assumptions have been made about you. You don’t even know that the bubble is acting, and therefore most people assume it doesn’t exist.

3. You don’t choose to enter the bubble.

If you turn on the TV, you know that you’re entering a bubble where you will receive information based on the channel that you are choosing to view. When you browse the Internet, you don’t choose to enter the filter bubble. The bubble simply comes to you. It’s on every website you browse, whether you like it or not. It is used every single time you do a search for something. There’s no escaping it, and there’s no turning it off.

I felt that these three things summarise very well the different aspects to the filter bubble. I’m about half way through the book, and I have to say it’s incredibly good. We have suspicions about a lot of what is discussed in the book, but actually hearing about the research is plain scary. I strongly feel that society will become damaged because of the filter bubble. So at the very least, do your part and become educated on it.

Will Geographic Location Always Be Important?

The fact that the Internet and mobile technology is meant to make physical location irrelevant is a bit of a misnomer. It has the ability to make geographic location irrelevant, yes, but in reality it isn’t happening. Here I’m going to take a look at both social networks and mobile phones, and just discuss how geographic location is still very important.

In New Zealand, there are three mobile telco’s: Telecom, Vodafone, and 2Degrees. You’d think that what mobile phone carrier you choose doesn’t have anything to do with your physical location as prices are the same country-wide. But what is quite obvious in reality is that your geographic location essentially determines which mobile telco you use. If you’re in Wellington, you use Telecom. If you’re in Auckland, you use Vodafone.

Look at social networks. Obviously Facebook is the winner, and crosses most continents. But then there are weird pockets where users in certain countries mostly use a social network different to Facebook. The obvious example is Brazil, where Orkut is still much larger than Facebook. The very premise of a social network is that it allows you to communicate regardless of your physical place. But here we have social networks being adopted not on interests or age, but on geographic location.

The answer as to why this happens isn’t that hard to work out. It’s societal laws. People will sign up to where their friends are online, and their friends are usually always in the same country as them. So it really isn’t a surprise that this is occurring.

But then we need to ask: will it always be that way? Many of the benefits that people see in the Internet actually relies on the fact that geographic location isn’t important. So will we see over time a decreasing importance in geographic location of users? Or could it remain an important fact that people actually hold onto?

My personal belief is that physical location will remain important to a certain extent in people’s use of different social networks (let’s let this include things like mobile phone telco’s). Despite the Internet breaking down physical barriers, it doesn’t necessarily mean that people will care less about their physical location. It’s something close to all of our hearts – and it plays a role in many of our decisions.

Who knows, in ten years geographic location may be totally irrelevant. But at least for that period of time I think it will still be important.

Thoughts?

Why Good Design Is The Solution To a Digitally Literate Population

This article was originally published on Idealog’s blog.

A recurring theme at NetHui during the “Access & Diversity” discussions was how to go about ensuring people have a basic degree of digital literacy. Digital literacy refers to people having an understanding of computers and the Internet and at least a grasp on how they function. This was my favourite discussion during NetHui because of how it evolved – there were different viewpoints, each with valid arguments, and the discussion was one which involved a very large number of attendees. I’m going to briefly touch on the sides of the argument, and explain why I believe design is the answer to having a digitally literate population.

When the question “how do we teach people to be digitally literate?” came up, the immediate response was that we should be providing workshops to people so that they can learn the skills they need. These would likely be a group lesson at a school or university teaching a specific tool, like Excel or about Internet browsers. The people who believe workshops are a good idea feel that they provide a personal way for people of all backgrounds and ages to learn Internet and computer tools.

I completely disagree with this approach. I feel it’s a waste of money and time, and would not lead to a digitally literate population. It’s a short-term and wasteful way of going about it, as every time a technology is updated (almost every year nowadays) everyone would need to attend another workshop to learn the new tool.

I’m sure most of you reading this post right now have a good understanding of the Internet and computers, and you consider yourself very digitally literate. I’m also confident that the large majority of you have never taken a workshop or something similar to learn how to use these tools.

So how did you learn to use them? In my view, most people learn to use the Internet and computers because they are becoming intuitive and simple. This comes down to their design. I see two key reasons for the drastic increase in computer and Internet users over the past ten years. Firstly, the decreasing cost of computers. Lower cost means more people will buy computers. Simple. But secondly, because the design of computers and websites and mobile phones has become so much better, more people feel that they can use these technologies – and therefore more people will buy them.

If design is one of the reasons explaining why so many people are now using the Internet and computers, I feel it is also the answer to how we may have a population in which every member is digitally literate.

Think about it. One of the key reasons for Apple’s success is that they make incredibly well designed and simple products. They allowed computers and mobile phones to be used by an entirely new market that before could not understand how these technologies worked. Apps for touch-screen devices are simpler than browsing through websites on a mobile device, which is why so many people use them. Facebook is simpler than other social networks which is why it has all the users, including an entirely new generation who previously could not use social networks.

Good design enables use.

There are more benefits to good design than just allowing more people to use the technologies. For people who are already digitally literate, good design will enable them to do more with the technology in less time. It creates efficiency and happiness when using the technology. It also will lead to increased sales for the companies who are producing the technologies.

I feel incredibly strongly that the solution to digital literacy therefore lies with the producers of the technologies, not the end users. Producers need to realize how important good design is, and focus on making things as simple and intuitive as possible. This will allow a long-term solution to creating a digitally literate population, and one that doesn’t waste resources or require constant teaching.

New Zealand is known for good design. Look at websites like HeyDay’s Down To The Wire for a perfect example. This is somewhere where we could be known as a worldwide leader in future. Why don’t we even set ourselves a challenge? Through design, let’s try to become the country with the highest level of digital literacy worldwide.

Why The MySpace Exodus Occurred

The other day at the Digital Life Academy here in Singapore we all had a discussion around why people leave social networks. Obviously MySpace was most talked about, as their exodus was very extreme. What was interesting was the various reasons that came up for people leaving MySpace. I thought some of you may be interested in the discussion.

The first reasons that came up were simply that people became bored of MySpace and wanted an alternative, as well as the fact that it was geared more to a younger crowd who had very little loyalty. I’m sure that both of these reasons contributed in their own way to MySpace’s fall – but I don’t think they were the main drivers of the decline.

Jeremy Brett, a MyCube employee, felt that the main reason people left MySpace was because of the messy and tacky design. It’s true – when you look at MySpace now, after using Facebook, it seems very childish and like it was made a long time ago. They gave their users so much control over their profiles that the end result meant people couldn’t even decipher some profiles as there were images contrasting very badly with text colour. When you have things like that happening, people will soon leave to an alternative that has some degree of beneficial uniformity.

Facebook is another extreme because it says everyone’s profile is exactly the same, but it seems as though that may be what people want. At the very least, I completely agree that MySpace’s design would have turned away a lot of users once an alternative became available.

My own view on MySpace’s decline? In a word: popularity.

When you look at MySpace’s rapid growth, one thing is quite clear. People started joining MySpace en masse in order to keep up to date with celebrities. Not superstar celebrities that are in the papers, but the MySpace celebrities. Joe Average’s who because popular because they added huge amounts of friends and then posted regularly about the details of their lives. This is what MySpace did – it gave anyone the ability to become a “mini-celebrity” within a certain social circle or friend group.

These “mini celebrities” then evangelized MySpace and got all of their friends and friends of friends to sign up. It’s why MySpace grew so quickly, and why it was predominantly used by the younger generation (I think older people aren’t as interested in following the insignificant details of the life of someone they don’t know personally).

But then what happened? MySpace switched and focussed more heavily on promoting bands and artists. The thing about this is that many of these artists are celebrities in their own right – the type of celebrity that is actually published in newspapers. When you have these “real” celebrities suddenly posted all over MySpace, it diminished the importance of the “mini-celebrities”. These people felt rejected, and in some cases like they’d been cheated.

When you have people with those kinds of feelings about a service, it’s not long before they’ll leave to a competitor. And since they were still influential in their social group on MySpace, they took their friends with them. It explains the rapid decline of MySpace.

What this points to is simply that MySpace did not understand the mindset of their heavy users, the ones who made their site popular in the first place. They should have realised soon enough the mistake they’d made – but for some reason they refused to go back on decisions they’d made.

Any social network in the future, whether it be MyCube or otherwise, needs to ensure that they completely understand the users who make them what they are. If you don’t understand the different demographics using your service, it’s all too easy to alienate them. And it’s not long before you’ll be just like MySpace and Bebo. Wow – I even chuckle when I hear those two names!