kidmercury

I've talked extensively before about how niche social networks are the future. Let me try to explain it again, this time using an example. Of course, before I begin, you should know that I'm in the business of creating niche online communities, and thus come from that bias.

Consider the band Hawthorne Heights. Like Colbie Caillat, Ingrid Michaelson, and many others, Hawthorne Heights gained their following through MySpace marketing. Unlike some other artists that have also used MySpace effectively, though, Hawthorne Heights focused extensively on interacting with their "friends" -- fans who friended them on MySpace. They also regularly update their MySpace page with new songs and blog posts, so as to create a reason for people to return. "The fans love it," said Eron Bucciarelli, the drummer for Hawthorne Heights, in the book Crowdsourcing. "They can't believe they're getting a response. You've got a fan for life."

The next step for Hawthorne Heights is to turn their friends on MySpace into a real community. In terms of what community means, the most defining characteristic of a community for me is its own social hierarchy. For a band like Hawthorne Heights, this means having a hierarchy of fans: who are the biggest fans? In a way, a person's friends list on MySpace is a way of offering this, though I don't think it is particularly effective. And for people with hundreds of thousands or even millions of MySpace friends, it is grossly inadequate.

As I have said many times before, Ning is something I find more compelling, as it allows for much more of a true community, where members can interact with each other, can participate, and a social hierarchy can more naturally emerge.

And this is a big part of where I see the web headed: social media technology companies, i.e. "web 2.0" companies (to use a term that has been outdated, though I still enjoy), will now have to compete for talented publishers that can build a community. Value is shifting from technology to the publishers. Companies/business organizations that can ride this trend will be well-positioned.

In particular, I feel this involves moving away from the current approach of creating a service that anyone can signup for, like Ning, Tumblr, FriendFeed, etc. Try to cater to everyone, and you'll limit your ability to cater to the publishers who can create a community; those publishers are the key economic scarcity, and value chains are re-aligning accordingly. I believe that the macroeconomic collapse, which is just beginning, will accelerate this.

I believe this will result in the rise of social media marketing companies that develop custom solutions for publishers, and offer high quality service, which would be a key basis of competition amongst such companies. This I feel is the natural result of publishing talent and online personalities being the key economic scarcity. This is how I view my company, though I am keen on connecting publishers, and thus building a publishing network where publishers with their own communities can share traffic and costs, and can cross-promote when appropriate.

As Kevin Kelly noted in his prophetic book, New Rules for the New Economy, community precedes commerce. Once the community is attained, the publisher can use their influence to recommend products and services they like. We talked more about this a couple days ago in our post on the five steps to the future of social networking.