22 replies to this topic

[africa]

hi guys,

I have been considering launching a social network for students. However a friend of mine asked me how i intend to beat Facebook or the things that i will offer that will actually drag people from Facebook.

This really made me think. I do not know if its actually a threat or can be of help.

I have read on some forums about ways by which i can advertise on social networks such as facebook and Myspace.

Im really confused over this but i think if i have around 10 000 users on my network i'd be more than happy BUT does this mean i've to offer something that is really unique or just target a niche like what i wanted to do?

[rpgsearcherz]

Well the biggest thing to keep in mind regarding sites like Facebook is that they are started because of word of mouth. "It's not what you know, it's who you know" is the big saying when it comes to that kind of stuff.

The best places to start would be to get friends to join, and help them spice up their pages so that others would be more into joining so that they can do the same with theirs. You do not necessarily have to "beat" the other sites, but rather offer something different.

If you put some thought into what you are capable of doing, I'm sure that you can come up with some ideas of things that aren't on Myspace, Facebook, etc., and implement them into your own. That is one thing that will keep people coming back again and again : the variation. If everything was the same, there would be no reason to continue visiting.

Hope this helps!

[mahesh2k]

If you think facebook is threat to privacy then what you'll call to Orkut? Facebook offers tight control on how your profile is accessed, who your friends are etc. On the other hand orkut profiles are viewable to almost any user. You can make albums/videos private but with grease monkey script hacks people are opening locked photo album. Because of this i moved my friends and family accounts to Facebook. I consider orkut more of underworld USENET community. Facebook on the other hand is much safe than orkut.

Spammers are more on Orkut/Myspace than on Facebook. Fake profiles are likely to be easily created with orkut as it is notorious for it's crowd on the communities. So if you want to keep in touch with family friends etc by sharing pictures,videos then i suggest share only on Facebook instead of myspace/orkut.

[xpress]

I don't know about facebook because I never used it. But I agree with mahesh about Orkut. It is the worst one I had seen. I had some dirty experiences with Orkut which lead me to give up and I deleted my account. Orkut is not safe and a great privacy threat to all. Don't ever upload any personal pictures and infromation there..

[y4nzi]

Privacy is a pretty big issue with these social networking sites. I keep getting warned to limit the info i put on there for fear of identity theft, I mean you have pretty much all essential details there, where you're from, name, birthday, email, photos even!
Having said that, I still use facbook. Myspace I stopped using a long time ago.

As for a new social networking group, It would be hard to break into the market so to speak. But personally, I join social networking groups because MY friends have joined. it's not really the features of each network that attract me but the people. Like rpgsearcherz said "It's not what you know, it's who you know"
I joined myspace first because my friends encouraged me to join, and once facebook took off my friends migrated there and so did I.

It would be interesting to see what ideas you can come up with. Good luck with it!

[Bluebear]

While we are talking about privacy, Facebook as well as other similar websites should have a function so that the user could remove pictures of themselves. I have lots of friends who are suddenly tagged in photos from parties (when they should have been elsewhere...), and other very unflattering images they absolutely hate. I think it is an atrocious thing, and that it violates a persons privacy! When someone do not want pictures of themselves to be published online, then they should have an option to remove them. If you send Facebook an email regarding this, they will answer something like "We will not remove images due to that they are slighly unflattering. If they do not go against our rules and policy, they will remain."

"Everyone" is on Facebook. If I do not log on I will not know whos birthday it is, upcoming (boring) events or be able to see some pictures from some awesome trip.

If you want to create something new it should be new, there should be nothing exactly like that on the market. People will not probably change unless the social network they are using turns terrible or something like that - I know I would not. Facebook (and such) is not a threat to our community... Me and my friends never have time to meet up and have fun, but we are able to talk and see what everyone is up to.

[africa]

Bluebear, on Dec 25 2008, 09:26 PM, said:

While we are talking about privacy, Facebook as well as other similar websites should have a function so that the user could remove pictures of themselves. I have lots of friends who are suddenly tagged in photos from parties (when they should have been elsewhere...), and other very unflattering images they absolutely hate. I think it is an atrocious thing, and that it violates a persons privacy! When someone do not want pictures of themselves to be published online, then they should have an option to remove them. If you send Facebook an email regarding this, they will answer something like "We will not remove images due to that they are slighly unflattering. If they do not go against our rules and policy, they will remain."

"Everyone" is on Facebook. If I do not log on I will not know whos birthday it is, upcoming (boring) events or be able to see some pictures from some awesome trip.

If you want to create something new it should be new, there should be nothing exactly like that on the market. People will not probably change unless the social network they are using turns terrible or something like that - I know I would not. Facebook (and such) is not a threat to our community... Me and my friends never have time to meet up and have fun, but we are able to talk and see what everyone is up to.

I wasn't actually talking about security guys but i understand it can be something that can pull some people from facebook. However I thought about it by myself and saw that although i am not necessarily in competition with Facebook and other sites like Myspace...I am competing for the time users give to these sites.

What i am saying is that my community will have to offer something that can make someone come to a decision to leave Facebook or Myspace just for those two minutes to check out my community.


That is what i believe is the challenge to launching a social networking today..with all this big guys..you have to be a bit smart hey.

[Tramposch]

If you have a niche, you can compete with Facebook. Well, maybe not compete, but be given a chance at doing well. Facebook reaches millions and your target is 10,00. It is doable, but it will take some work. Facebook started as a specific college only website, then expanded to all colleges, then to everybody.

The hardest part is going to be launching it. Once you get it spread from there, traffic comes to you. Find a lot of different ways to market it too. I know it may not be relevant, but a huge portion of traffic on the internet is YouTube. Making some videos might help a lot. Also it depends on how it is developed. If you are custom making it, make sure you go through it thoroughly and rid it of bugs. If you are using a platform, make it original with custom themes and have it offer things other sites running off that platform do not have.

Difference is a great thing. Difference and implementation. Those 2 words are going to be big in the marketing of this.

[rpgsearcherz]

Yeah, along with what they added to what I said, remember that you do not need to *beat* the other sites, you need to go along beside them. There are a lot of people I know of that have both Myspace and Facebook accounts, for example. Each one offers different things.

So if you do make a social networking site, do not base it on competition, but rather the community itself. As it grows bigger and bigger, that is when you turn it into more of a competition.

[truefusion]

Social websites like MySpace, Facebook, etc, have people who work on it almost everyday, coming up with new ideas, fixing bugs, etc. If you're going to make your own, you'll have to put in similar effort into the project if you truly want around 10,000+ users. Since these other social networks are up, there will be some competition from them, and probably people wondering, "How many users does this site have?" I don't know how these other social websites started out, but they've obviously had time to grow. Social networking sites can't be themselves without users. Indeed, you'll have to have something interesting about your site. Extraverts are key for social networking sites, so is advertising. You could target one area, then after rooting yourself, spreading to others.