I recently had a conversation about how I don’t like social network sites — or at least generalist social networks. I believe that SNs work best (or really at all) when you are talking about small groups (a softball leauge, your company, etc). This is why I think that Ning is a great idea.
But why should I need MySpace, Facebook, etc? They feel like they are trying to create reasons not to leave them, not reasons to stay.
I have a list of friends in my address book. I have a home page. I have a blog (or blogs). I have an RSS feed to keep people updated. The internet is already my social network. Why should I need more annoying versions of it?
The only thing that is missing from the equasion is how to express friends of friends, oh if only. And good and easy tools to link all of the things mentioned together. Then the net will be everyone’s first social network.
My susipcion is that Google Profile is something like this. If is a classic Google play: Use that massive index of the net they have and connect it up in differnt ways. It could just be the begining of an day dawning…
