Social Networks
Dec 5, 2008
jcrump
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A Look At Failed Social Networks

Many social networking sites have come and gone, though it's easy to forget about most of them with monsters like Youtube and Facebook acting like they are the only kids in the classroom.  Social networking online began with a site called Six Degrees which basically invented the social-circle networking guidelines that are used by so many sites today.  It was named after the popular six degrees of separation theory (which I believe was invented by Kevin Bacon…).  More experimental than anything else, the company that made the site grew to a little over 100 employees and was eventually bought for quite a large sum of money.

Since then, many have tried to replicate and improve upon the success of that social networking site.  Some have gone on to make their inventors Man of the Year, but others have fallen into the gutter of floppery.  Taking a look at some of them can provide some insight into what is needed for a successful social networking site.  (Details after the jump…)

The Lowdown:  This was Wal-Mart's failed attempt at a social networking site for teens.  It was only online for ten weeks, with a preview left online for about two months after that.  In many ways it was a MySpace clone where users could build profiles with graphics and text related to Wal-Mart products.

Why It Failed:  To register for The Hub, user information was sent to parents in order to get approval.  This attempt from Wal-Mart to avoid future lawsuits turned off many teens.  There were also many obviously fake profiles on the site, from teens like "Beth" who just loved shopping at Wal-Mart in order to catch the eye of the cute guy at school.  The myriad of advertisements for products cluttered the profiles and 90210-ish older models posed for the pictures of the fake teens.

What Can Be Learned From It:  A successful social network needs to provide freedom for its users and as few in-your-face advertisements as possible.

VitalSkate

The Lowdown: VitalSkate was meant to be the answer to the skater's dilemma of how to social network without having to give into the mainstream outlets.

Why It Failed:  History didn't serve VitalSkate well as its creators Salman Agah and Dave Metty had already sunk another social networking site attempt years before.  The site did not provide that many things for users to do that they couldn't do on the mainstream sites, and the audience for this social network was already against the whole idea to begin with.

What Can Be Learned From It:  KNOW your audience and act accordingly.

The Lowdown:  This was a New Zealand based startup that was meant to be a social network specifically for the older set.  It lasted less than a year before it shut its online doors.

Why It Failed:  The site failed on several fronts.  The entire site was designed in Flash, which made it look much prettier than its MySpace counterpart, but was not very practical.  To join the social network, users had to fill out a lengthy personality questionnaire and answer many questions, which users found tedious.  The network also didn't have a clear purpose.  Users under 18 were restricted from joining the site, but that certainly doesn't sound like much of an ‘old person' site to me.  It acted too similarly to the other networks out there.

What We Can Learn From It:  Social networks need to have a clear purpose from their creation, and they need to be easy (and possibly even fun) to join.

Most of the sites at which I looked failed because of one simple flaw:  failing to offer anything new to users.  Why would I want to join a social networking site that doesn't do anything special when compared to the others that already have me hooked? 

…At least I'm not having the troubles that Darcy had with her ‘MyRoom' page.

Below is a great social media timeline taken from a research paper written by Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison entitled "Social Networking Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship".

  • http://antivirus.getthebestinfo.com Antivirus

    The failure of those websites cited in the post has its roots in the lack of conceptual planning from the start. Creators of social networking sites must have a clear idea what they want to do and what they want to accomplish in the next 5 or 10 years. Short-sighted vision does not work.

  • http://www.buzzup.com/us/story/6612 buzzup.com

    A Look At Failed Social Networks…

    Many social networking sites have come and gone, though it’s easy to forget about most of them with monsters like Youtube and Facebook acting like they are the only kids in the classroom….

  • http://www.claricode.com Claricode

    It seems that social networks follow the classic “network effect” where you need to get a critical mass of users. And the more users there are, the more valuable the service.

    As these are all very niche sites (the people who want to talk about Walmart’s products, etc), it isn’t too surprising that they failed.

    I’m not an expert in social networks by any means, but it seems that due to the network effect it would be a lot harder to create a separate niche site than to create a general social networking site with niche groups. That way, there would already be a critical mass of users to get others to join the general social network site. And the barrier to entry for joining the niche group would be far lower than for joining an entirely new social networking site.

    Of course, it is still possible to create a social network if the topic has a passionate or very unique set of members.

  • http://broadstuff.com/archives/1421-Asymmetrically-follow-me,-Im-also-lost......html broadstuff

    (Asymmetrically) follow me, I’m also lost……..

    I was reading James Governor’s post on Asymmetrical Follow (ie in a Asymmetric network there is not symmetry between people you link to, and those linking to you) as a Web 2.0 pattern, when I saw this transcript:

    There are those that would would sa…

  • http://www.broadstuff.com alan p

    I see niche socnets as much the same as dotcom Groups – they aggregated into ever bigger ecosystems (from listserver to eGroups to Yahoo Groups for eg) so that you could be a member of many niches with one ID

  • http://www.iperinfo.com/ Ann Warner

    very informative article ty!

  • http://www.priceme.co.nz Henrik

    Niche sites is all about fulfilling a need and connecting like-minded people with similar interests. For example, there is certainly a need for grown ups to communicate. The iYomu site failed for various reasons, and with a better site and more focus on grown ups it could have made it big.

    I believe that niche site will continue to prosper as long as the fulfill a need in the market. It’s more convenient and attractive from a user perspective to be part of the community of a niche site rather than some marginalised, hard to find sub-community on some of the larger sites. This applies in the real world as well!

  • http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/06/roundup-youtube-hd-links-del-biaggio-charges-korean-game-support-and-more/ Roundup: YouTube HD links, Del Biaggio charges, Korean game support, and more » VentureBeat

    [...] A closer look at why some social networks have failed — They didn’t offer things people wanted, or they were copycats who missed the market opportunity, basically. Tags: co:electronic data systems, co:google, co:real-networks, co:Second-Life, co:YouTube SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Roundup: YouTube HD links, Del Biaggio charges, Korean game support, and more”, url: “http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/06/roundup-youtube-hd-links-del-biaggio-charges-korean-game-support-and-more/” }); Sphere It Digg this story! venturebeat227:http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/06/roundup-youtube-hd-links-del-biaggio-charges-korean-game-support-and-more/ var disqus_url = ‘http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/06/roundup-youtube-hd-links-del-biaggio-charges-korean-game-support-and-more/ ‘; var disqus_title = ‘Roundup: YouTube HD links, Del Biaggio charges, Korean game support, and more’; var disqus_message = ‘YouTube gets links to high-definition videos – It already offered HD videos, you just had to use a simple hack to access them. In other YouTube news, the company is offering a new service for adding sound to videos you upload.%0AValley investor Del Biaggio nailed with fraud charges — William Del Biaggio, a high-flying investor [...]%0A%0A %0A %0A ‘; View the entire comment thread. Trackback URL [...]

  • http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2008/12/07/social-software-failures/ Social Software Failures : Beyond Search

    [...] “A Look at Failed Social Networks”. You can find the article at BivingsReport.com here. The write up presents two cases in sufficient detail to provide useful insights into the use of [...]

  • http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2008/12/07/the-google-operating-system-myth-or-reality/ The Google Operating System: Myth or Reality : Beyond Search

    [...] Google have a Secret OS?” by Andy Patrizio appeared in Internet News on December 4, 2008 here. I found the write up to be thought provoking. Mr. Patrizio makes it clear that Google did not his [...]

  • Jeremy Dunck

    FWIW, danah prefers that her name not be capitalized.
    http://www.danah.org/name.html

  • http://rosacea-treatment.net Jenny R.

    Great blog, I like your style and will check back for updates.

  • http://dailydaley.windycitizen.com/ Anna

    I agree with many of the commenters that the #1 problem is a failure to know your audience and set goals. “We want to start a new social network” is not a goal. I wish this problem was confined to failed social networks, but of course it’s widespread in the marketing, PR and advertising community.

  • http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/321/RipOff0321145.htm Tim Reynolds

    Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.

  • http://ridesearch.com Brian

    As a creator of a social network niche site I can tell you it all really depends on how broad your niche is and how viral it can become. Copycat sites will not work unless they offer value added service that other competitors don’t have or will take time to reproduce.

    Failure of sites is also hard to define. If becoming the next Facebook is the goal then most sites do fail. But if creating a good user experience and retaining users is the goal then it is harder to quantify. Making money is the ultimate quantifier and most sites fail at that as well. All in all it amounts to time spent existing. If wal-mart would have kept up with their site and redesigned it until people were happy they would have been successful. Having a successful site means you are going to have to work at it for more time and money than investors generally want to commmit to, but it can happen, despite the naysayers.

  • http://www.TrigeiaBlog.com Trigeia Twinz

    Short Vision – Failure
    Long Vision – Success

    What defines success in the social media space.

    social networks should always be open to evolving based on the needs of its users and the market

    http://www.TrigeiaBlog.com

    Trigeia Twinz

  • http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/12/04/digest-11/ Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Dec 11, 2008

    [...] Study: Failed Social Networks This list gives the losers of the social networking space, starting with Wal-Mart’s the hub. Expect this list to grow during the recession as revenues [...]

  • http://www.web2whizzing.com/blog Sloba

    Also there’s Pownce closing its doors since they partnered with Six Apart

  • Ato

    Nice article!
    does anybody know something about a community called Sharea? i need informations about it’s failure for an university seminar!
    Thanx a lot!

  • http://www.AsianMe.com Xyooj
  • http://MilitaryFacebook.com Rex
  • http://abertol.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/social-butterfly-caught-in-the-web/ Social Butterfly caught in the Web « The Cracked Door

    [...] on humanity called Facebook and before that MySpace and before that LiveJournal”. However A Look At Failed Social Networks shows how social networks have changed, and learned from others failure to be the social networking [...]

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