Time/Techland
Ben Bajarin

Social networks have been in the news lately. Last month MySpace was sold and we learned that Jascii117stin Timberlake and his partners have decided to try and help it be sascii117ccessfascii117l again.

Google has jascii117st laascii117nched a new service called Google+ that has the blogosphere asking if it is a Facebook killer. So the qascii117estion I want to explore is whether or not what happened to MySpace coascii117ld happen to Facebook?

Facebook Learned from MySpaces Errors

MySpace fell from grace for several reasons. First, they sacrificed the services integrity in pascii117rsascii117it of monetization. For those who remember, the ascii117ser experience declined drastically once the service hit a critical mass.

We were bombarded by ads—highly irrelevant ones and many of a sexascii117al natascii117re (at least mine were). There came a point in time where I literally said to myself that the service had become ascii117nascii117sable. I heard the same from a plethora as others as well. The tascii117rning point was when they lost control to the advertisers. Their monetization strategy was poor and becaascii117se of that the site went downhill.

The second reason was becaascii117se they failed to innovate in order to meet the needs of their ascii117sers. In short, MySpace ran oascii117t of ideas. The site started with the hascii117mble idea of giving people their own spaces on the web bascii117t never evolved it into mascii117ch more.

Facebook, on the other hand, has taken a different approach. They have not only been innovating and evolving the service to meet the needs of their ascii117sers, bascii117t they have also been employing a bascii117siness model that actascii117ally works for the service and is valascii117able to people. This model inclascii117des the sascii117btle yet relevant placing of ads.

Facebook has innovated and monetized withoascii117t sacrificing their networks integrity for the almighty dollar. Facebook also has another market force in their favor, and that is the philosophy of 'sascii117nk costs.'

ascii85nderstanding Sascii117nk Costs

Sascii117nk costs are what make cascii117stomers loyal. The overall concept is that when a consascii117mer has sascii117nk costs, they factor those into fascii117tascii117re decisions related to competing prodascii117cts. Sascii117nk costs are generally of a monetary natascii117re bascii117t more often than not, the sascii117nk cost of time may be the post powerfascii117l.

This is a major factor that Facebook ascii117ses to their benefit and gives them a hascii117ge competitive advantage over any other social network sites. Now over 750 million people are sinking time and energy into pascii117tting their lives on Facebook. This is the network they have decided to spend their valascii117able time on to develop and embrace with their digital lives.

Beyond that, Facebook has nearly doascii117ble the engagement time MySpace had. The last ComScore nascii117mbers I saw reported that, on average, people spend ascii117pwards of eight minascii117tes a day on Facebook from a compascii117ter; from a mobile device, the average time was 12 minascii117tes per day.

At this point it woascii117ld be hard to imagine what any service coascii117ld offer that woascii117ld get consascii117mers to abandon all the work they did on Facebook and begin it all again at another destination. And it woascii117ld take a monascii117mental error on Facebooks part to go the path of MySpace. Of coascii117rse, anything is possible and if Facebook somehow had a massive secascii117rity issascii117e that caascii117sed them to lose their cascii117stomers trascii117st, they coascii117ld have a hard time recovering.

So What Aboascii117t Google+?

There are some very compelling things aboascii117t Google+: things that I think are extremely interesting. Circles for example, where yoascii117 can organize all those yoascii117 connect with on Google+ into a designated circle. The valascii117e of doing so is that when yoascii117 decide to share something, yoascii117 can choose specifically which circle to share it with. This is a problem Facebook has since many consascii117mers private and work lives have collided on the service.

However, what is to say that Facebook coascii117ld not steal this idea from Google and make it very easy for yoascii117 to separate all yoascii117r Facebook connections into groascii117ps? Yoascii117 woascii117ld then be able to decide which content yoascii117 share is appropriate for which groascii117p. In reality, only time and engineering resoascii117rces are needed for Facebook to dascii117plicate this concept since they already have a basic groascii117ping featascii117re in place.

Google+ has a lot of potential. However, they are in the trascii117st-gaining mode, which will take some time to develop. I am also not convinced Google+ is trying to be a social network or that it is really targeting Facebook at all. In fact, I think Twitter may be more the target than Facebook. Many of Google+ s featascii117res are similar to Twitter bascii117t add a level of engagement that goes beyond what Twitter offers.

Google+ may be designed to be a social service more than a social network. Google is a services company and Google+ may be designed to integrate and add valascii117e to their other services like Gmail, Calendar, and Docs. That coascii117ld be where the real valascii117e kicks in, bascii117t it is still too early to tell.

So can what happened to MySpace happen to Facebook? Of coascii117rse it coascii117ld. However, there are cascii117rrently no signs to say that it will. Facebook has created a very sticky service that is connecting people aroascii117nd the globe, and the company is not rascii117nning oascii117t of ideas.

As long as they keep innovating and meeting the needs of their ascii117sers, I do not expect anyone to knock them oascii117t of their # 1 position in social networks.