The Value of Social Networks

At the START Summit 2009, I took part in a workshop on business models for Web 2.0 companies. The most important "finding" was that some social network operators do a good job at charging their members for some services that they are actually willing to pay for while others miserably fail. While most of the information and discussions didn't really excite me, one question remains. Why am I using social network applications? What value do these platforms offer me?

In short, social networks offer condensed and contextualized information, they help us to reduce the number of things we're missing every day. All the profile data my friends fill in and all the actions they take are condensed into interesting packages, such as events (facebook), albums or company pages (linkedin). The activity feed is then pointing my attention to the available information, it is the social network cockpit.

Now how could this value be increased?

1. There must a better solution than so called "real time activity feeds". The answer is hidden somewhere in the IT labs of this world, who are dealing with recommendation systems.


2. Some information, such as job-related info is not really heavily used today. Social networks really only offer market places for jobs. Referrals, constant search for candidates or opportunities, etc. haven't really been very well incorporated into the social network's offerings.


3. Inclusion of further sources of information. So far, social networks only take the "member generated content" rather than the full content of the internet into account. Why not add suggestions on related articles, events, pictures, etc.


4. Extraction of geographical data. ASmallWorld has a geolocator feature, that is filled with information on the member's future trips. Such information is usually also added into status messages, etc. by most members. So why not automatically extract it and mash it up into a geolocator map for my friends instead of using additional tools, such as Plazes or TripIt.

Do you have other suggestions for improvements?

Companies in Switzerland and Singapore

I found useful comparison tables for the most important types of companies that exist in Switzerland and Singapore. I'm generally interested in limited liability companies / partnerships.

St. Gallen Symposium Photo Wall

I didn't know how easy it is to create a CoolIris Wall and I'm completely amazed. It took me 30 seconds to create this wall, wherefrom 10 seconds were used to find out the correct Flickr username.

• More information about the CoolIris Wall


• More information about the St. Gallen Symposium