One thing that I think is really important — that I think is context for this, is that I generally think that most other companies now are undervaluing how important social integration is. So even the companies that are starting to come around to thinking, ‘oh maybe we should do some social stuff’, I still think a lot of them are only thinking about it on a surface layer, where it’s like “OK, I have my product, maybe I’ll add two or three social features and we’ll check that box”. That’s not what social is.
Social – you have to design it in from the ground up. These experiences, like what Zynga is doing or what a company like Quora is doing, I think that they have just a really good social integration. They’ve designed their whole product around the idea that your friends will be here with you. Everyone has a real identity for themselves. And those are fundamental building blocks.
From TechCrunch’s Interview With Mark Zuckerberg On The “Facebook Phone”.
What do you think about the social layer mixed in with the gaming layers (rewards systems, leveling up etc) that are being used as well when developing products?
I think it’s a killer combo.
Amen! I have this pet peeve for the words “social networking” to the point where I cringe a little, because the vast majority doesn’t implement it right. Just because you add a whole row of retweet/fb/digg/etc. buttons to the end of your post, doesn’t mean your article will become this enormous traffic booster that will catapult your site to the top 100 list. Likewise, just because you’re running BP on your site, doesn’t mean it’ll become the next FB. It just doesn’t happen that way, because there is no value in that. It has to be personal to you and, in my opinion, it has to start organically. If you’re a company, you have to build partnerships with people/businesses that complement you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j5hU8UPaQw)and you ought to talk to your customers directly and not hide behind a bunch of mass signup emails or adverts. There’s a lot of time and elbow grease involved that many don’t realize, and it goes way beyond providing “social features.” I actually like this quote from Steve Jobs, “If you look at overnight successes, most of them took a long time.”
Matt soon bloggers will be making and breaking sites 🙂 I have a site with buddypress for bloggers 3 months now and it’s on Fire and has been profitable since day one in more ways then just money 🙂
Great things are Happening 🙂
Next Stop is #LIVE 🙂 I am on it and I am sure wordpress will handle the integration flawlessly 🙂
6 months you will be blogging in your living room and we will be watching 🙂
Till Then 🙂
You mention two companies or sites: Zynga and Quora. I just visited them. What are they? Non-functional if you ask me. Went to play a game on one of them and you can’t do anything except watch a snoop dog video and see a banner ad. Not sure why you are singing their praises.
Social, is getting away from the computer and going out with your real friends. Facebook etc are not Social. It is a myth. A geek fantasy.
If I want social, I go down to my gym and spar, or kick the crap out of some bags. This social media hype is just a fart in the wind.
At the end of the day people want information from the www. That is its core.
Just to clarify, the bulk of this post is a quote from the linked article, it was Mark Zuckerberg saying that not me, though I do agree with him.