Vivid Curiosity

I’m borrowing the term focal point from game theory. But my point is web 2.0 companies don’t become interesting until their community becomes a focal point for an important segment of society.

It’s like being a watering hole. You’re the place to be, a gathering point. People can gather anywhere, but around the watering hole seems to be a natural place. And once that trend starts, it self perpetuates for a while.

Now watering holes are pretty good focal points, especially if:
1. They are the only source of water around
2. They are communal/public property
3.  Water remains highly useful

Now point 3 seems a little silly but bear with me. I think that successful Web 2.0 websites are a lot like watering holes. They just need to monetize. The water is still free, but they try to make money off of numerous side benefits to being a watering hole. Often they try advertising, sponsorships or other ideas. Some even let people set up shop near their watering hole (think of the iPhone app store).

You can see that MySpace lost on point 1 when Facebook got big. But I’m surprised at how little resources some Web 2.0 companies use to try and remain a focal point in society.

I’m also surprised at how often people with large bankrolls, venture capitalists, investment banks etc assume that something will remain a focal point. Sometimes these things just come and go. Think about all the clubs that used to be hot, but now aren’t.

I think bars and clubs are another interesting case study of focal points involving social status. “The place to be and be seen” is an aura some Web 2.0 sites have as well. But that’s a post for another day.

I’ve seen a few people creating or asking for a “list” of social media destintaions to upload their content. And while I always am happy to add SlideShare to the list, I really fee like there shouldn’t be a list. It should maybe be a handful of places you name, if the list is more companies than you can remember, it’s clearly too big of a list. 

In social media you want your content in one authoratative place. Sure you can try a few places and see what works best, but please don’t try to upload it everywhere. You want to promote that place, send it links, build up a reputation. It’s much better to have one place with 10,000 views than 10 places with 1,000 views. I can’t imagine there being much extra traffic from each additional social media platform.

Even if all you care about is the total view count, who wants to spend their day uploading content and re-entering meta data? Doesn’t that just like a bad day?

What’d you do today? “Oh, I uploaded my slideshow/document/video to 10 different sites today, I hope I get a lot of views. ” Doesn’ t that just sound spammy?