Network Updates View on LinkedIn

I am loving the new "Network Updates" view on the front page of LinkedIn (you have to be signed-in to see it). It breaks down updates across your network by the last several days/weeks. Basically, giving you a timeline of what your network has been doing.

The obvious reason for this is to not only give you an overview of what your network is doing, but provide a call to action to click-through, spend more time on the site and do some more networking.

Here's what mine looks like:

Fortune Agrees With Me

I've said before that I don't think MySpace is going anywhere partly because it's so very different from Facebook. MySpace = content, Facebook = software. Fortune agrees.

Comparing MySpace and Facebook is inevitable because of their dominance in the business, but their differences are profound.

Facebook is intended to be used only to connect you to the people you already know offline; it's a "utility," to use the preferred label of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Its user interface is clean and tidy, and the whole vibe is efficiency and getting things done.

MySpace, on the other hand, is a mishmash of modern media - rich with music and video and comedy. It's like a rock & roll club - chaotic, loud, and packed. Many user profiles are florid and flamboyant, with flashing text and music that starts playing as soon as you arrive.

"We're focused on helping people express themselves and do the connection and discovery game," says Steve Pearman, one of Anderson's top deputies in designing the service. "If you want pink blinking text on a black background, who am I to say it's wrong?"

At MySpace you can befriend not only anybody but anything. A dog can have a profile, and so can AT&T. This looseness has powerful effects, very different from anything on Facebook. MySpace became the de facto home page for the music industry because its members could befriend bands. Any brand, political candidate, nonprofit, even government, can create a profile and start adding friends.

Last.fm Let Me Down

Did I tell anyone that I got an iPhone? Oh, I did? I wasn't sure if you'd heard. Well, I did. I got an iPhone.

Last.fm: why don't you scrobble plays from my iPhone? What is to become of my Last.fm profile? The widget in my sidebar?

No high-give to you, Last.fm.

Social Networks: How Much Is Too Much?

I read a lot of industry news everyday and the one thing I read about more than anything (because I simply can't avoid it) is social networks. If they're not announcing a new social network they're announcing that they're hiring programmers to help build a social network. So, I started to wonder, how many social networks are out there?

Turns out: a lot. Here's Wikipedia's list. It's important to note that this list does not extrapolate on smaller networks within sites like Ning and is probably missing quite a few. So, I started to wonder, how many social networks are too many?

Turns out: I have no idea. That's a tough question to answer. Heck, even Vampire Freaks, the social networks for goths, has a purported 1M+ members. So are social networks doing the same thing that newspapers figured out how to do a long time ago? Localize?

Newspapers survive because they create content relevant to their local readers. According to eMarketer local online advertising spending in 2006 was $2.1B, in 2007 it's on track to be $2.9B and they are projecting $7.8B by 2011.

My belief is, if advertisers are spending money in a sector, that sector is working. The same trend is found in social networks. People with a particular interest are drawn to social networks that cater to that interest.

So, maybe the question shouldn't be how many social networks are too many, but how many special interests exist? Turns out: it's probably quite a few.

Giving In

I suppose I've been giving in a lot lately. I caved on the iPhone and now, after jumping off my high horse, I've caved on Facebook. Yes, I now use Facebook. Feel free to look me up.

I gave up on MySpace several months ago, citing the horrible design and completely overbearing ads. MySpace isn't really in trouble because of Facebook and, while they may loose a number of users to Facebook, I don't think they're going away anytime soon. They may be in trouble, however, if they don't start cleaning up their act when it comes to user experience.

People have told me over and over that the user experience on Facebook is a dream. That it's smart, easy and intuitive. I didn't really buy it until I started using it. It's awesome. They built this entire platform with us, the users, in mind. It really is nice. And, to be honest, I don't mind the occasional sponsored post in my news feed. Nor do I mind Facebook's move to include profiles in Google (et al) search results. Isn't the point of a social network for people to be able to find you?

I firmly believe that MySpace will continue, for a long time, to be a major player in social networking. They have one thing that FaceBook doesn't currently have and that's an uncommon friendliness to advertisers. As long as there are celebrity and movie and band and book and other product profiles people who are interested in those products will stick around. Period.

Used correctly advertisers can create campaigns that are highly targeted to the "short tail." Their key customers, the ones who really care about their product, will continue to patronize MySpace landing pages. It's not for me, but people have proven time after time that they respond to professionally created campaigns. That's not going to just go away.

So, high-give to Facebook. High-give to MySpace. And damn, seriously, high-give to the iPhone.