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1 Response to “Steve Ballmer on social networks (and a whole lot more)”

1. 1 Paul Spence
   Nov 5th, 2007 at 11:32 am

   Let’s not forget that “social networks” existed long before the silicon chip was invented and online communities existed 5 or 6 years ago, well before “Web 2.0″ had a name (I know because I established one of the first in NZ).

   What has changed is that the technology just keeps getting better and better. When I studied social network theory and epistemic (knowledge sharing) communities in the technology sector, what I found was that most of the creativity did not happen at the heart of the community, or even at the boundary; it happened on the bridges that linked the communities. Virtual communities are facilitative tools, but the real work gets done live and in person.

   I don’t think online social networks are going to disappear anytime soon, but they will continue to morph into other beasts over time as new and unexpected applications are devised. But linking between communities is a little contrary to the established business model because all the main contenders are squaring off in their own corners right now.

   In time this may change because there is a limit to how many times you can replicate “re-purpose” or re-publish the same content within an isolated network. Furthermore there is an older demographic who have barely been touched by the phenomenon and to whom an attractive value proposition has not yet been fully articulated.

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