The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFahterhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

Sorry, Meetup.com, I'm already suffering social networking fatigue

I'm always interested in seeing how the social networking process is being captured at various online sites, so I've been variously part of Orkut, Friendster, Ryze, LinkedIn and even MySpace. For some sites, a social network is a logical outgrowth too. Think of sites where you're visiting because of specific shared interests with other members and becoming friends with them.

Think Meetup.com, the newest entrant in the social networking derby.

There is a curious sort of logic to these new features, since Meetup is already focused on arranging and coordinating face to face meetings. You probably remember Meetup for its extensive press coverage during the last election: it became the favorite meeting coordination tool for politically active folk of various stripes.

There's no presidential race around the corner, which appears to have given the Meetup team a chance to really think through the future of its business, especially the question they've always had of how the heck do we monetize this thing? Their last attempt, a switch from free to paid event coordination, didn't go over too well in the marketplace, as I wrote about in The Evolving Business Plan of Meetup.com

Nonetheless, there are an impressive number of coordinators using Meetup for organization and logistics, including over 350 groups in the greater Denver, Colorado area ranging from board games to alternative health, poetry networks to psychics, survivalism to the feral cat meetup.

Put all those meetings together, sprinkle in thousands of different people who either organize or attend one or more event, and you really do have the seeds for a nice social network, and so...

You can see the new tabs along the top of my Meetup Profile: "Friends" and "Testimonials". Indeed, I have two Meetup friends already, both fellow Coloradoans.

But here's what I want to know: do we really need yet another social network?

How on earth are we supposed to keep up with them all and make sure that they're all reasonably well maintained and up-to-date. I've already started just ignoring mail people send me within the MySpace world, because I just can't deal with the terrible email interface on the site.

Here's a startup idea: we need a tool that lets you have one centralized profile that you maintain and it would automatically update all the different social networks and sites with a social network component so that you'd have a consolidated view of all your friends across the networks, a tool to make sure your profile is updated on all the sites. etc.

Without such a tool, I fear that Meetup's social networking tools are just too little, too small, and too late. I know I can't deal with yet another social network...

How about you? Are you suffering from social networking fatigue yet?

Posted by Dave Taylor at September 2, 2006 9:16 AM

Comments

Coupla things. First, I'm surprised you're lumping Meetup in with Orkut, Ryze, etc. Meetup is merely an enabling tool for _offline_ networking...which to me is far more social and interesting than MySpace, LinkedIn, et al ad nauseum.

Secondly, Meetup's been around for quite some time, long before Ryze or Orkut peaked and ebbed...they're no Johnny Come Lately.

Social networking fatigue? Sure. But only with the online kind, which is why I cancelled nearly all of my online networking memberships. Building actual friendships in the real world is far more interesting than clicking one more checkbox to add someone as a "friend". I encourage people to get out from behind their monitors and give it a shot.

Eric Weaver, organizer
Seattle Flickr Meetups (http://flickrfan.meetup.com/11)

Posted by: Eric Weaver on September 2, 2006 3:03 PM

I'm not only fatigued over them, I don't even try to read about the endless networks emerging anymore.

The only exception is, well, the exceptional. There's room there, but it just can't be the copycat offerings that really don't have much differentiation.

The recent network targeting the over 50 crowd may be something that appeals to the network weary of that demographic.

Posted by: Gary Bourgeault (thealphamarketer.com) on September 2, 2006 3:46 PM

Eric, first off, I'm well aware of Meetup's history and wonder if I didn't convey my point well: it's not that Meetup is yet another social networking site, it's that by adding the "friends" and "testimonials" features, the site evolving *into* yet another social networking site. Or should I say Yet Another Social Networking Site with caps, to denote its inevitable use as an acronym?

Anyway, yes, meeting people in person is always better, but then why would I want to link to them on Meetup if I have met them in person? And if I *did* want to link to them, why not use a more established and sophisticated social or professional networking site like LinkedIn, with its millions of users and professional focus, or MySpace with its music/entertainment focus?

My point is that when features like "link your friends" are so darn easy to add, it's perhaps inevitable that more and more Web sites will utilize them to try and be more "sticky", but that doesn't mean it makes any sort of sense, but it DOES mean that we're all going to burn out on filling out yet another profile, updating yet another online resume, and cross-checking email addresses and known friends far, far sooner.

Posted by: Dave Taylor on September 2, 2006 7:03 PM

Personally, I prefer the "distributed" approach. The Flock browser is going in that direction, although it doesn't do profiles yet. In my opinion this is more trustworthy than the "centralized" approach where all my data is on a server I can't control.

And for the centralized approach to work at all, there would have to be a monopoly situation where only one player controls everything. This will not happen. A lot of players, big and small, are working on "one centralized profile" and will fight nail and tooth for their marketshare. Which means we'd have to login to several competing "centralized" sites to share profiles with our friends and contacts.

And isn't it ironic that we want to battle "social network fatigue" with even more "social software"?

Posted by: Matthias Gutfeldt on September 4, 2006 10:13 AM

Ahh, now I see what you mean, Dave. Yes, in that case I agree with you...adding the new functionality doesn't do much but create one more set of links to maintain.

Posted by: Eric Weaver on September 4, 2006 8:40 PM

I joined Meetup for a few days. The concept was great, I thought. The problem was that I couldn't log in to the site after I posted a network ad. I emailed back and forth to their help desk at least 6 or 8 times. I got so frustrated at their inability to help I finally requested they cancel the forum and return my money.

Posted by: Ray on August 9, 2007 1:24 PM

I'm on MeetUp, Now What? I joined two months ago and their are a ton of network marketers on there promoting their products or services or maybe that's just my experience. It sucks and works at the same time. I often question how I can keep up with more than one network at a time. so, I just focus on a few and try not to drive myself crazy.

Posted by: AP on September 6, 2008 9:49 AM

hai aku cari temen lo

Posted by: Surya on September 7, 2008 9:03 AM

Here is the REAL trouble with internet socializing-it is nothing but haphazard. too many sites like meetup, face book, etc.

Just like dating sites. Too many and few members on each one. It may list a lot of people but look at the activity on a meet up event-20 or less and usually about 2-4 people actually show up.

I have been to a few meet up events and it was just me and the organzier.!

Everyone thinks the comuper and the internet is going to end their lonliness. WRONG

It has INCREASED it.

Too much confusion, scams and GS .

The internet MAY evolve into this master network center that you join and you are matched up with things were people actually attend events, you can really get dates, etc.

But the internet is now all about greed and not like it was in the late 90's to early 2000's. It was like the wild west back then but at least is was not all about making money. More about connecting people

And the creation of cheap internet service and cheap computers and cell phones that access the net does not help.

And i doubt anyone card about this blog.

Posted by: Richard on July 3, 2010 12:58 PM

Richard, you sound like a pretty unhappy chap who has had some bad experiences online. Sorry to hear it. Conversely, I have to say that getting online and being active in social networks has been a huge boon to both my social and professional life. I have a vast circle of friends and colleagues both in my local area and throughout the world and it's a great thing.

And as to whether anyone cares about this? Well, I do. And that's why I keep it going...

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted by: Dave Taylor on July 3, 2010 5:29 PM

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