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Dear Community Builder user,

Over the past few years you might have been reading about, have been helped by, or have been supplied with software/personal hacks/personal software modifications by or have read references to "ysva". In the old days "ysva" used to be a very active user here, but somewhere in time suddenly stopped with being active.

Now, ysva is the name of a Dutch company focussed on cross-media and innovative industrial design, inspired by the open-source community of Joomla and CB. In a month a 3-years work project will be launched all over the Netherlands featuring Community Builder as one of the main components, expecting around a minimal of 2500 users per planned area (we are planning about 300 areas in the course of the next 8 years, but this is very optimistic, as we have several other projects running that require the same amount of attention). This version of CB has been modified intensively to meet requirements (and modifications might be published at request for open source use here at CB).

Now, noting that you're still reading this long story and congratulating you in still being awake, I want to ask you something about the future of community websites, which we’re worried about. I’m sure they will still exist, as user interaction is one of the very cores of Web 2.0. But how will this kind of site develop in Web 3.0? First a little introductory information, you may skip this to the end but we recommend you read it to avoid awkward moments in the discussion.

[See next post, an internal server error occured when trying to post the whole thing, but then again: it's a mighty long story. Sorry about that.]

Post edited by: ysva, at: 2008/07/29 21:12

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Social networks use the internet as an amplifier for social interaction. It offers a solution of how to connect people from anywhere in the world and close the gap of separation which is present in real-life society. The largest problem is staying alive: finding a source of income (investors, advertising, etc.) and getting a critical number of users. The critical number is the amount of core users, loyal users, returning users. The rest is always largely variable.

The most anticipated improvement of Social Networks 3.0 is the use of object-centred sociality at its core. The following extract from a post by Jyri Engestrom explains the new method of connecting people.

“The term 'social networking' makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people. Think about the object as the reason why people affiliate with each specific other and not just anyone. For instance, if the object is a job, it will connect me to one set of people whereas a date will link me to a radically different group. This is common sense but unfortunately it's not included in the image of the network diagram that most people imagine when they hear the term 'social network.' The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They're not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object.”

Post edited by: ysva, at: 2008/07/29 21:11

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This is new method has already been adopted by TheFaceBook, which revolves around the users having a shared experience of going to the same college or university. By understanding that all these people have a common object, their place of education, they are better placed to provide a more effective and efficient service to their users.

The demand for community sites (or social networking sites in general) is growing enormously (a social networking bubble, like in the 90ies, occur according to specialists but the chances of that are unlikely). This demand is created by a new generation, the first generation to grow up with internet and already creating a community profile shortly after the age at when they start reading and peer pressure starts to kick in. This group literally explodes at puberty and then doesn’t decrease much as people are used to using the convenience of the web and so many community sites aimed at work exist. It is not unlikely that one day we’ll have social networking aimed at the elderly.

Object-centred sociality appears to be a major step forward in the creation and management of contact lists. Having separate categories for; work, friends, family etc, would enable a user to cross-reference the groups, looking for individuals with multiple shared objects. [Facebook is a perfect example of “cross-grouping” - ysva] The results of such a query would yield individuals with a greater relevance or association to the user. Unfortunately for users, current social networks have become a competition of who has the most contacts, resulting in users adding individuals who they will never interact with. This attitude must change if sites are to fulfil their potential and enable better connection between users.

Post edited by: ysva, at: 2008/07/29 21:11

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We at ysva have already noticed a large trend of embedding web content from different websites, especially media-sites like YouTube or social networking sites like Digg, to increase the functionality of community sites. Chance of survival is very limited otherwise. Specialisation in certain areas and “growing with the user” as the user might change personality over time and will age, has seemed to be very effective.

Here is a short list of interaction and functionality of community sites:

Current social networks typically incorporate some of the following media types and methods of interacting;
• Email – image, video and text
• Instant messenger – image, video and text
• Live web casting
• Podcasting
• Blogging
As mentioned before, the functionality of social networks has evolved dramatically over their short life time. Current sites provide the following functionality to users;
• Finding individuals
• Building and managing directories of contacts
• Access management to your identity and contact list
• Connecting with people in your network
• Content sharing with individuals on your network
Despite the diverse methods supplied for connecting to other individuals and building up contact lists, social networks have still not lived up to the initial promise of providing a natural and unproblematic means of communicating online.

So what does the future of social networking, especially community sites, hold?

Thank you for reading,
Yours sincerely,

Yanick van Altena
General Director - ysva

Post edited by: ysva, at: 2008/07/29 21:13

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Sources of information:
FUTURE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING by RICHARD LONGAIR

Ironically enough, ysva's website itself is not yet reachable on the internet! We're planning to fill up www.ysva.com in a week or 3, when holidays are over, with our full portfolio.

Post edited by: ysva, at: 2008/07/29 21:11

Post edited by: ysva, at: 2008/07/29 21:12