Comments on: Surviving the Commoditization of Social Networking http://www.drama20show.com/2007/07/24/surviving-the-commoditization-of-social-networking/ Keeping Tech Sexy Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:05:44 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Ben Strackany http://www.drama20show.com/2007/07/24/surviving-the-commoditization-of-social-networking/comment-page-1/#comment-261 Ben Strackany Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:47:35 +0000 http://www.drama20show.com/2007/07/24/surviving-the-commoditization-of-social-networking/#comment-261 Ah Drama, I just found this blog. Good to see you've started up your own space. I've enjoyed your comments for too long on TechCrunch. I agree 100%. I think too many companies feel/felt that the technology will be a differentiator for them, or that they could ignore other aspects of running a business (managing capital, product management, marketing, etc.) and let the SNS drive them to cash & acquisition. There has always been commoditization of something (servers, programming languages, frameworks, etc), so perhaps many companies are just being lazy, i.e. thinking that they only need to build what companies built 1-2 years ago, and thinking that now that it only takes a month to put out a social network, their job must be done, right? And I think that some companies might still be successful if they aren't as good at marketing/etc -- they just need *some* sort of differentiator. And commoditization just means that another prior differentiator (e.g. having a social network) is going away, so companies either need to once again get far ahead in the technology arms race (e.g. mobile?), and/or run themselves like a "real" business. Ah Drama, I just found this blog. Good to see you’ve started up your own space. I’ve enjoyed your comments for too long on TechCrunch.

I agree 100%. I think too many companies feel/felt that the technology will be a differentiator for them, or that they could ignore other aspects of running a business (managing capital, product management, marketing, etc.) and let the SNS drive them to cash & acquisition.

There has always been commoditization of something (servers, programming languages, frameworks, etc), so perhaps many companies are just being lazy, i.e. thinking that they only need to build what companies built 1-2 years ago, and thinking that now that it only takes a month to put out a social network, their job must be done, right?

And I think that some companies might still be successful if they aren’t as good at marketing/etc — they just need *some* sort of differentiator. And commoditization just means that another prior differentiator (e.g. having a social network) is going away, so companies either need to once again get far ahead in the technology arms race (e.g. mobile?), and/or run themselves like a “real” business.

]]> By: Omar Ismail http://www.drama20show.com/2007/07/24/surviving-the-commoditization-of-social-networking/comment-page-1/#comment-127 Omar Ismail Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:53:44 +0000 http://www.drama20show.com/2007/07/24/surviving-the-commoditization-of-social-networking/#comment-127 Great post. I do have a solution that would probably work out well for everyone. If FB took their platform to the next level and allowed for Total Conversion mods (taking a term from the gaming community). Essentially, a company could completely reskin FB with its own interface and add new functionality (in the form of apps) that can be accessed directly from Facebook or even from the company's own domain. This makes sense from a company's standpoint since they get access to a huge community, and they save themselves a lot of time in implementing boiler-plate features. Despite social networking tools being a commodity, they still take time, money and energy to implement well. FB would benefit by retaining users instead of losing them to the niche communities. FB could even charge for such a premium service and treat it like Amazon's EC or S3 storage services. Great post. I do have a solution that would probably work out well for everyone. If FB took their platform to the next level and allowed for Total Conversion mods (taking a term from the gaming community). Essentially, a company could completely reskin FB with its own interface and add new functionality (in the form of apps) that can be accessed directly from Facebook or even from the company’s own domain.

This makes sense from a company’s standpoint since they get access to a huge community, and they save themselves a lot of time in implementing boiler-plate features. Despite social networking tools being a commodity, they still take time, money and energy to implement well.

FB would benefit by retaining users instead of losing them to the niche communities. FB could even charge for such a premium service and treat it like Amazon’s EC or S3 storage services.

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