The Intermission

Earlier, I pointed out three problems I see with social networking. My first two problems are, I think, still valid. But I’ve done a bit more research and found out that there is probably no need for another startup to create a set of social networking APIs. They would be entering an arena with at least 40 other competitors. Apparently, in my earlier searches, I wasn’t using the correct terminology. These companies that make APIs for social networking are called “white label social networking platforms”. “White label” meaning anyone can rebrand them.

I haven’t had the time (and who would?!) to look at all 40 of these platforms, but I can already share some preliminary thoughts…

First, the current arena of social networking platforms looks like many other emerging categories have looked before. There are way too many competitors for the marketplace. In the next few years, these competitors will die off, merge, or get bought. Ultimately, I’m guessing the major players will look like they do in other software categories. Microsoft will have SharePoint; Google will have its offering (probably a revamped version of a startup they’ve bought); maybe one more name brand offering (like Cisco or Oracle); plus one or two others that develop organically out of the mess of current competitors.

Second, I’m immediately drawn to a couple of the platforms I see on Jeremiah Owyang’s list. Ning looks awfully interesting, in part because of their feature set and in part because I just learned that they’re one of Adaptive Path’s clients. Ning gives me almost everything I’m looking for: a flexible tool for deploying user profiles, blogs, and groups, the ability to search for users within my social network, the ability to host my social network on my own domain, and the ability to include (or not include) advertising. However, they don’t make the cut simply because they don’t allow me to make my social network as independent as I’d like. What I mean is, your social network is always going to be a Ning social network. You can’t integrate a Ning social network with an existing registration system. And when a user registers to use your Ning social network, they’re also registered to use every other Ning social network. This is a major shortcoming for business applications. For a company that wants to create a social network, half the point is to get a bunch of users’ names and email addresses into your database so you can start sending them emails and coupons. Until Ning makes that possible, I don’t see it being used for many corporate-run sites.

Third, I’m scanning Jeremiah’s list to find a platform that is open source, modular, and purely utilitarian. I’m looking for the social networking platform equivalent of PHP or WordPress. Something easy to set up, without a lot of branding, lets me remix the features in a modular way (e.g. I want to install forums and blogs, but not groups), provides a registration engine, but also lets me integrate with an existing registration database. I haven’t seen one on the list that sounds like that yet, but I’ll keep reading. For my money, that’s would be the best of breed winner.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 25th, 2007 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Community, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.