Online Community Loyalty - Myth?
Jim posted some stuff that had me nodding in agreement this afternoon about the myth that online communities create a natural monopoly. J. LeRoy's Evolving Web: Who Will Kill MySpace First? "Brand loyalty does not exist in the world of on-line communities. The common perception is that once you hold users in an on-line community you build up a natural monopoly because the user base will be unlikely to switch services because their community is on the system.
It seems to me there are a couple of things to pick out and highlight.
Mass defections from Friendster to MySpace show this simply is not true. The cost for change is measureable, but groups can transition. New gadgets on new sites, or the promise of freedom from an annoyance on an existing site, can outweigh this cost of platform transfer."
First, lets distinguish between the community (the people) and the platform that hosts some or all of the community's interactions.
The Community
When we talk about "community" in the same breath as sites like MySpace, we are talking not about one community, but many communities that live on the space. People may identify at the "MySpace" level, but the glue that holds them together is their relationship with a much smaller subset of people. Small groups are quite nimble. The perceived advantage of being part of the larger MySpace community may not be strong enough to hold.
Think of Yahoogroups. It is a collection of communities. If Yahoogroups wants to keep people on its platform, it has to think about how to keep those communities happy. One way is through treating list owners well. Because MySpace is built up not from a subgroup, but from individuals aggregating into subgroups, they have to keep EVERYONE happy. Hard, hard, hard. Especially when we are all so fickle.
So much for the durability of the community. First movers can be in last place pretty quick because communities are small, may be individual driven and thus hard to hold. From what I see, the bottom line is that people stick to each other, not a platform or host unless they really like it!
The Platform
We used to think the cost of moving platforms was high enough that people would stay and put up with things they did not like rather than move. Gone are those days, particularly for younger generations. The ability to hop, skip and jump through and across tools and platforms is dizying. As Jim noted, there is a cost for change, it may be measurable, but it is NOT the driver. Freedom is the driver.
posted by Nancy White at 3:49 PM
3 Comments:
"Paricularly for younger generations"
I think that's key. Kids on MySpace are saying "MySpace hired an adult."
Social software is not one size fits all. The base technology may not differ, but the aesthetic and the culture of the site is very important.
Adults tend to look at all Social Software as like LinkedIn. As a tool to leverage your network to get fame or money.
Adults tend to write off MySpace as a "place to look for sex."
That dismissive attitude doesn't go unnoticed by smart kids who are really looking for a place to grow socially, culturally, and intellectually. And if people are demeaning you'll go through a lot of discomfort to leave them and find others.
If MySpace is seen as disrespectful to their users, their users won't care one wit how hard it is to switch.
Is it really dizzying? Switching from one web based friends network to another does not require a change in behavior, nor does it mean a drastic change in UI.
It's equivlent to switching servers for an email list. The client software, the protocols, and the format remain the same.
It's akin to switching coffee shops, New Orleans' forum of choice. Maybe the new place down the road has better seating, better lighting, but the format is the same.
It is even easier to change web communites because the are linked, not threaded.
Maybe the questions are
* what is dizzying to whom in terms of day to day use of a platform?
* what are the implications of leaving your data, artefacts, etc behind at an old platform?
* what happens when it becomes easy to "take your stuff" with you?
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