Searching for the Next "It" Social Network

Facebook has undergone major changes in the past year. The social network had been a favorite among college students who felt they had a certain degree of privacy due to Facebook's restrictions, which called for a .edu email address at the time of registration. But in September of 2006, the popular social network opened its doors to anyone and everyone despite the bad press surrounding its main competitor, MySpace.

Facebook's open registration has prompted an unprecedented growth among 25-34 year olds (181%), 12-17 year olds (149%), and 35+ adults (98%), according to comScore who also reports Facebook's unique visits per month grew to 26.6 million in May 2007. On the other hand, MySpace lost almost 30 percent of its teenage population over the past year, and doesn't appear to be growing as fast as Facebook. These changes have everyone wondering what the future holds for these two social networks.

Could Facebook be "It" this time?

Soon after Facebook announced their open-registration policy, those who couldn't sign up before headed to the popular social network to set up a profile. They wanted to test drive it to compare it to other social networks, namely MySpace. Many have written articles comparing both sites, unanimously declaring Facebook the winner. They attribute their decision to the site's organization, privacy settings, ease of use, design, and just the fact that it's not littered with spam, marketers, and sexual predators...at least for now.

Everyone's raving about Facebook now, but I wonder how they'll feel a year from now when undesired folks join the network. If people are leaving MySpace, it's probably due to the site being overtaken by trolls, spammers, hackers, and marketers. Others are just tired of how meaningless the circle of friends have become. Does one really need 1,000 friends? MySpace's atmosphere is chaotic, and those who are serious about networking with friends will eventually make Facebook their primary destination. But does that mean they'll completely cut off MySpace? Absolutely not, well at at least not 100 percent.

Dana Boyd, a UC Berkeley researcher, says not all teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. In her controversial blog essay (Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace) she says teens are divided between these two social networks, but even when former MySpacers decide to join Facebook, they're likely to keep their MySpace account to stay in touch with some friends.

A Place for Everyone

One problem I see is that social networks try to be a place for everyone. A complaint dominating conversations on privacy in the socialphere is the unwelcome presence of authority figures in their circle of friends. Most of us would be uncomfortable if our parents, teachers or boss showed up at our house party, and that obviously translates into our online social life too.

For example, young people don't mind if their parents are part of a social network, they just don't want them to be part of theirs. Fernanda Diaz of the Huffington Post, responds to a column in the New York Times about a cybermom who joined Facebook, tried to befriend her daughter and friends, and instead got a harsh response from her daughter. Fernanda asks her friends how they would respond to the "your mom on facebook" situation hypothetically, and the responders all seem to agree: it's an invasion of privacy. You might think this is a typical response from a college students, but the idea of parents befriending their children on social networks is as creepy to teens as it is to adults. Just ask Parent Dish's Nadine Silverthorne who had a similar experience when her 60 year-old mom sent her a friend request.

I don't know about you, but I have a profile on MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bebo, Vox, Flickr, and many other social networks. I use each account differently so I don't always have to worry about what I post. I've set up an account to stay in touch with my professional acquaintances, another for family, a personal one for friends, and one to correspond with everybody else. This is not ideal, but it works for me. Although, I wouldn't mind a social network that welcomes everyone, yet gives users a seamless way to either set up several profiles or more control over their privacy settings. If social networks gave users better privacy controls, maybe people wouldn't jump from network to network every year. Facebook is definitely on the right track, but only time will tell how the social experiment will work this time around.