WhatsTheBuzzAbout.com

Does Who Owns a Social Network Concern You?

Most of us sign up for social networks because someone whom we trust invites us or we learn about it through reading. However, most of us do not take the time to do any due diligence about the ownership of the social network. Conducting “due diligence” on the ownership still will not ensure that we make a wise decision regarding joining and investing time.

Who owns a social network should concern you. You should be fairly comfortable that if you were to invest time and energy inviting people to join, contributing content, and developing a following, that the social network would have a reasonable chance of surviving and gaining ground. Over the last few years, we have seen networks close or be reconfigured, such as Soflow or SuccessBC. Pownce is bouncing away on December 15, 2008—its employees were hired, but the entire basis for its existence, us, is left in the dust. We have over a hundred Yahoo groups being closed by an owner of the groups, and its participants asked to join or included in larger groups owned by that same individual—not necessarily the niche that the individuals initially desired. Many times, the social networks are closed for lack of participation, and sometimes they are closed just because they get to be too much work for the originator of the network.

Many of us watch the financing of the large networks such as LinkedIn™ and want to be certain that they continue to live. We assume they will because of the infusion of capital by well-respected investment entities. Other networks seem to depend successfully upon their own revenue streams. Others are losing money but still have high value in the investment market place, while others appear to have no source of revenue.

As consumers, we have little protection. We do not have any severance clause.  We are “at will” social network participants. Most privately-owned social network platforms have no succession plan and no plan for an orderly migration or merger into another platform down the road, even if it is clear to the owner that he or she cannot keep it going indefinitely.  We invest the time and energy in participating, and yet we have no stake in determining whether the platforms live, die, or merge.  We help create the value, but have little say in the future of a network.  Yet, we continue to join multiple networks at a rapid rate without regard for the future.

Perhaps it is the proliferation of networks that is our safety. Perhaps, we assume that if one shuts down it won’t make a difference to us. That itself is a commentary worth considering when we look at yet another new network invitation. Maybe we suffer from the so what syndrome—so what if a network disappears –which is certainly understandable.  We just need to join our networks with clarity about what we will do if the network disappears and if the ownership of it makes a difference to us.

What is your buzz about?

Do You Feel Restricted from Being Authentic?

When social networks first began to emerge, there appeared to be relatively clear distinctions between personal and business networks. For example, MySpace was considered to be a personal network and Xing (formerly OpenBC) was considered to be a business network.  There was actually some confusion with using the term social network, until that term became adopted to describe both business and personal networks.  Many people attempted to separate their personal social networks and their business social networks—some still attempt to do so.

As the popularity of social networks grew, the blur between personal and business social networks diminished.  Business associates on business social networks found colleagues on their respective individual personal social networks and vice versa and requested to connect. People began to connect with the same people on multiple networks.  Advice givers were quick to point out that reputations could be enhanced or damaged by virtue of using certain applications or posting certain things on specific networks. Employers and executive recruiters began to scour personal social networks for insights on clients and candidates. Parents monitored children. Some spouse and significant others monitored their loved ones.

The fun of purely social applications, such as dating applications or what is your flower-type applications began to be tainted by the need of many to ensure that he or she reflected purely business appropriate content. Older adults and business people began to participate on social networks such as Facebook, which had been traditionally the territory of the under 30 set.

More and more content on these social networks became accessible to non-members through search engines, such as Google, which collect information and organize it for retrieval. We have the possibility of controlling only part of the information which is collected on us depending upon the web site.  Individuals looking for us through a search engine can easily find us if we are a member of a social network such as LinkedIn™.

Now we know that where we participate and what we enter online is archived and often retrievable by others. Has that affected your decisions about

·         What social networks to join?

·         What groups or forums to join?

·         What applications to add on those social networks?

·         What postings or comments you make?

·         What RSS feeds you add?

·         With whom you connect?

Most people will admit that they do edit themselves with respect to those areas. The repercussions about being 100 percent authentic , i.e., joining, posting, and connecting can be insurmountable. It seems that there is a need for a social / personal network where people can feel free to be themselves without being judged and where others pledge to maintain confidentiality about what they read and observe and take no adverse action as a result of any information on that social network.  Dreaming about the impossible social network is fanciful.  The only privacy that one has now is what he or she chooses not to share, and sharing only certain information with certain people online is almost impossible. Being truly authentic has been lost in the rush to implement data gathering, data analysis, and data mining.

What is your buzz about?