How this piece missed orkut entirely, I’ll never know, but it shows the shallowness common to these kinds of easy articles. It asks the facile question: “where’s the business model,” but then refuses to answer it – it’s in the data, it’s in the portal strategy, it’s in the user lockdown. I hate it when reporters don’t do the math.
NYT on Friendster et al..
How this piece missed orkut entirely, I'll never know, but it shows the shallowness common to these kinds of easy articles. It asks the facile question: "where's the business model," but then refuses to answer it – it's in the data, it's in the portal strategy, it's in the user…
The trouble with most coverage is it doesn’t ask the real question; Is social software actually worth anything at all? Does it work? I tried to answer that with regard to dating-centric social software (mainly Friendster) and came to the conclusion that it may perversely exacerbate social ties rather than augment and cement them. Basically, Friendster forces friendship and courtship in spaces where it wouldn’t normally happen. Social interactions are nuanced in ways that EBay clearly is not so the argument that social software brings together buyers and sellers and therefore maximizes their desirable outcomes is simplistic. That’s why I was so surprised when Google launched/allowed Orkut — it’s so…10 months ago!