Social Networks- Time to Specialize

May 10, 2008 · Comments

I’m looking at a new social network for writers called Protagonize. It’s a place where writers can come, register, add a picture, fill out a profile, type in the same stuff (granted, they’ve streamlined this a bit here), and then you can do the main core activities of the network:

  • Submit stories or parts of stories.
  • Collaborate on other people’s stories.
  • Comment.
  • Vote.
  • Add friends.

It’s nicely made, has some reasonably interesting features, and if you’re a writer, it’s worth checking out.

And Yet

I want more. I want lots more. No, don’t come comment on my post and tell me that it’s coming. It’s not your fault, but here’s the thing.

We have the baseline functionality of account, friends, comments, voting, etc. That’s all done. There are hundreds of implementations of it. We get it.

At this point, I want someone to get smart like the ZLoop guys and figure out a centralized social networking profile repository that permits us to have multiple iterations, depending on the network.

For a site about stories and writing, I want MUCH more specialized tools. Maybe a floating ajax thesaurus. Could there be a visual storytelling tool that lets writers branch the story in multiple ways like a choose-your-own-adventure book? I want mark-ups and overlay editing features so that others can come in and give you edits and annotation to your stories.

For a site about music, maybe it would be different tools. Come to think of it, Flickr should buy Aviary and roll Picnik in tighter so that we get specialized tools there, too.

I think professional networks have the most opportunity in this regard. Businesses and professional organizations need tools that go beyond what LinkedIn have offered to date. We’re actually looking into that at CrossTech Partners, researching toolsets and building use cases for how professional networks can evolve.

If You’re Developing a Network

Don’t stop at the basics. Don’t just give me another place to make a profile and add friends. It has to give me much more than that before I care. And I think I’m speaking for the user base in general at this point.

Consider what might really make the software valuable and useful. Consider ways in which your targeted users might want to interact. Specialize instead of generalize. Give us VERY specific tools. What would librarians find interesting? What would educators need to take time away from their typical haunts?

And as for YOU, what do you want in your specialized social network? What can you imagine being a set of tools for growing out your human relationships?

Love your thoughts on some variations on the theme.

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  • I want a single application which allows me to mail,chat,phone and videoconf with anyone in my virtual community.
    I want the ability to personalise comment threads so that I can select which comments to keep , which to throw away and the ability to organise them. These are general features, of course. The success of a social network is driven by people whose passion for the subject is greater than any technological constraints
  • Is the social network virtual or real? In other words, are we looking for tools to help meet new people, or to collaborate with existing contacts? The goals are totally different. I don't need photos of people I know alongside their name, but it's essential with my online chums. Two of the reasons that no network does what we all want are (1) they are mini companies without much backing and (2) we all want different things! This is where the API frameworks provided by Pownce et al. come good. Niche is good, but only if the tool interoperates with some core technology. We all have different email clients, but they all use SMTP and IMAP. Why can't someone create a protocal for Twitter-esque comms which we can all plug our niche tools into? Now that would be something!
  • @Paul - check out XMPP. It's kind of close to that flavor.
  • This may be a bit OT from where you're going with your post, but I'm a writer and I checked out Protagonize. Before I became involved with Twitter, I might have been more interested in it. But one of the things I've learned over the last few weeks is that I want to know the names of the people I'm in a community with.

    Even if their screen name is their brand (problogger, copyblogger, remarkablogger, etc) I can click over to Web sites in their profiles and find out a little bit about who these people are beyond a clever screen name.

    The anonymity of forums is one of the reasons I avoid them. (Sam Lawrence had a great post along these lines on his blog yesterday.) I love the idea of highly specialized social networks, but I hope they find a way to build in real authenticity as well.
  • Excellent post, Chris. You've articulated the next step of maturation for social media.
  • Anyone tried babylon.com for dictionary/thesaurus? I loved the idea and paid for it, but hardly use it. One way forward here is to have 'something like a babylon client' which you plug your own features into, using an API if you're clever, or using drag/drop in a browser interface if not. Babylon only works on Win, but a smartass could write something like that for Air as well.
  • You're right about the music side of things for sure, Chris.

    It's something I've given a good deal of thought to, and the nearest that I think anyone has come to it is the social recommendation systems implemented in Mog, Last.fm, iLike and Fuzz.

    But I think we're far from finished here. That social interaction that goes along with friends who will run off a copy of a favourite album and say "here - you've GOTTA hear this!" is not, to my knowledge replicated in any community sites (obvious copyright difficulties notwithstanding). The ones that manage it seem to be more about exhibiting taste leadership and developing esteem within the community - rather than about contributing to the musical worlds of the recommendees.

    And music consumption is, of course, not just about discovering and buying music. Listening is a social experience too - as are the ways in which we generate understandings of cultural meanings from the music.

    Sites like Muxtape are a good step in the direction. Compilations from friends are certainly a large piece of the puzzle.

    I don't want to know what "people like me" want to listen to. Nor do I want to know what music is similar to other music I've listened to. I want to know what you personally think that "I" would like to listen to.

    So... there are a few attempts at it, but nobody's really cracked it. I have the big piece of paper out, and I'm putting the pieces together. I'll let you know how I get on.
  • hey chris
    i was just chris anderson's blog whos talking about how much better the CPM is for adsense on niche social networks than on the big ones like myspace.
    there is alot of talk in the music business about specialized nings, ive even been toying with starting one:) the stopper is time. there has to be a lot happening there to make it work. and agreed specialized tools that differentiate it from the rest. 'niche' is the new black. but the niche social networks need to be really tricked out to work and retain their audience.
    david
  • Hi Chris-

    Thanks for the feedback on Protagonize. There are definitely other things you can do on the site than what you listed that are more tailored to actually participating in the story-writing process, but to be honest, the site is really not intended to be a standard social network.

    There is no real way of adding friends, only favourites, which is not necessarily reciprocal and is more a representation of enjoying someone's writing rather than knowing them personally or wanting to be friends with them in some way. It's more of a mutual respect thing and is supposed to be centered around the writing, not the social aspect.

    I would also disagree with the commenter who says that anonymity is a bad thing in niche communities. I don't think it's necessarily and I purposefully did not make real names required -- there are many writers on the site who don't want their identities known for a variety of reasons, and I don't want to force them into it. I will, however, make it optional at some point down the road. There really hasn't been any kind of demand for it, though.

    I've got a laundry-list of functionality to build out over the next few months, including some stuff you won't find on any other "social networks" (and I use that term loosely.)

    I'm a one-man show building this site: I'd would love to address everything, but it's a work in progress (and no, I'm not calling it a beta, since it works great as-is.) I think Protagonize authors would rather use the site right now and let the site's design evolve along with their requests and desires, rather than throw it into an extended private beta until I get everything done that I'd like to have on the site.

    Either way, though, your feedback (and that of your readers) is much appreciated, and I'll take all of these various interpretations of the site's purpose into consideration as I keep building it out.

    -nick / protagonize
  • Also, one quick note about your comment:

    "What would educators need to take time away from their typical haunts?"

    I've got a bunch of features in development right now to address the needs of educators (I'm specifically getting lots of feeback from ESL teachers, who use action mazes as part of their repertoire of tools.) Some of this should be addressed in the creation of "writing circles", which should allow moderators to run their own areas within the site and control the type of content posted, users included, privacy, and posting rules. I'm also looking at white-labeling the site for educational users, down the road.

    -nick / protagonize
  • I know exactly what you mean, the future of social networking is many, easy to use, specialized groups where (ultimately) each facet of our online selves can have real time and on demand social network perks.

    Yesterday I made a Ning social network for my local arts scene, and surprised myself by even getting a Facebook application to work that shows the pictures uploaded to the Ning site.

    I uploaded a dozen Mp3's a video, made a forum, events, etc all the things a social network needs, now it just needs people! The important thing is that it is specialized which works within the free parameters of a site like Ning. For example I am allowed 100 pictures (in the slide show) and 100 Mp3's, which would be fine for a site with (possibly) a few dozen or so people.

    Anyone (who visits Chris's blog anyway) can have a Ning social network up and running in an hour or less, it's not MySpace easy but it's not coding either. (I'm just an artist btw not affiliated with any company or group).
  • I think I'll stick with Toasted Cheese - the best writing community I've been able to find, social network or no social network. Had a friend tell me the other day to back away from the computer - that I have entirely too many social networks. And he's right. I need to start cutting back...
  • My interpretation of what you're looking for is the open source equiv' for creative writing.

    Seems plausible, although I'm sure it'd have to include some Creative Commons stuff, with tweaks, maybe?

    It's not like non-linear is new, but from a social networking perspective, it introduces some intrigue...
  • I agree with what you are saying about professional networking platforms needing to go further than Linkedin.

    On marzar.com you can distribute business articles such as press releases, case studies, product information or agency credentials to a business audience.

    At the sames time as generating leads this is building up a valuable library of business articles that will help other members research and find resources for their company or promote and sell their products and services.

    Further more you can advertise and promote events, post wanted and offered ads in the global marketplace, blog to raise profile and share insights with others, join or form groups to promote business discussion or set up a private group and share files and information to work collaboratively with others.

    Lastly marzar is an open network meaning you can see all members who choose to display their profiles and this acts as a directory of services connecting all members with the right contacts.

    Come and have a look http://www.marzar.com
  • Not sure how your site is very specialized in functionality, Marzar. Seems like the same old features to me.
  • James Bowler
    Chris, I read your comments about Protagonize, and I think you're failing to see the main aspect of the site. As a writer I've come across many, MANY sites that are dedicated to writers, to collaboration, and to editing and rating. Not in my time of searching for the right site for me have I found a site thats so dedicated to the Author.

    We're an overlooked species, there are too many socialist sites dedicated to connecting with friends, sharing likes and dislikes of music, movies, even books. But never before have I experienced a way to actual write my work, have it advertised to all other members of the site and then have it read and rated.

    The fact that you're looking for all these bells and whistles in additions just tells me that you're too used to these sites that focus more on socializing and less on the productivity of having my work or anyone's work read and rated.

    I mean putting all these additions that you're suggesting on this site would only ruin the atmosphere thats been created. It would turn into another facebook, or WAYN, or Myspace, where people come, post pictures, and waste their time gabbing about the hottest new actor, or the newest indy rock band. We would lose what we're most frantically looking for in the first place. The ability to have someone read our work and appreciate for what it is.

    I agree that maybe a thesaurus or dictionary might be useful, but these are things I can find with firefox anyways, so why do I need them?

    This is my ideal site, it was ideal from the first time I found it, and if people want to chat and have fun than there are a number of other sites they can visit for that kind of banter.

    I don't want to see my writing or anyone else's work put on the back burner because people are too busy talking amongst themselves to care about what we're writing.

    From what I can see, this site is an original, and its perfect the way it is. And anyone who can't appreciate that doesn't belong there.
  • I've been using protagonize for a month or two now. What draws me there is the content.

    I'm not much on the whole social-networking thing. I don't IM, I email for very specific purposes (none of this "hey, what did you think of Indiana Jones?" type of small-talk), and I try not to waste more time than necessary. I've got enough going on in my life that I'm usually behind on my list of stuff to do, and somehow, logging onto Facebook or MySpace or whatever just doesn't rank too high...

    But I make time for Protagonize. It does what it says it does. It's simpel, it's elegant, and it doesn't try to be something it isn't. I don't see it as a social network. I'm not friends with any of the authors I read. I just like their writing styles.

    I'd truly hate to see protagonize succumb to feature-bloat in order to try to win new fans....

    There are too damned many sites out there that do many things passably well, but no one thing very well. I think Protagonize does round-robin style collaboration very well. Does it really need more?

    > "a visual storytelling tool that lets writers
    > branch the story in multiple ways like a
    > choose-your-own-adventure book?
    Um. At the end of each branch, the author has the option to link to up to three other branches (some may already exist, others not). This is the basic functionality of the choose-your-own-adventure, isn't it? Sure, a funky visual tool would be neat. Is it necessary? The functionality is there, if not in a bloated, slow-to-load, visually-pleasing yet ultimately frivolous UI.

    > I want mark-ups
    The basic editor used does provide basic markups for *basic* formatting... enboldening, italicizing, underlining, numbered or bulleted lists...

    > and overlay editing features so that
    > others can come in and give you edits
    > and annotation to your stories.
    Yeah, I'd like to see some of that, too. I'd be a little concerned about folks over-editing my contributions, but seeing specific annotations would be quite valuable....

    So, while I understand your argument, I feel that you're coming from the camp of wanting everything and the kitchen sink in one place, while I want a separate and discrete function at a separate and discrete place.

    But hey, I'm the kind of guy who has a palm pilot that *doesn't* come with a GPS or a cellular phone. I mean, I have a cellular phone and I have a GPS, why do I need it all in one place?
  • I've got a bunch of features in development right now to address the needs of educators (I'm specifically getting lots of feeback from ESL teachers, who use action mazes as part of their repertoire of tools.) Some of this should be addressed in the creation of "writing circles", which should allow moderators to run their own areas within the site and control the type of content posted, users included, privacy, and posting rules. I'm also looking at white-labeling the site for educational users, down the road.
  • Adding more features to social networking sites like the ones you mentioned is a great idea. It allows for more ways to interact and connect with people.
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