In this second ideas post, Harry describes some ideas for an interest-based social network.
The current situation – Why do we need this?
The problem with a social networking site like Facebook is that users tend to have people added as friends they don’t usually interact with or never interact with. Also, users may ‘know’ their Facebook friends but apart from a select group of closer friends, they are not usually interested in what many have to say in their posts. As a consequence of this, if a user may see his friend make 5 posts a day, none of which really interest him or incite him to make a response, but if that friend does eventually make an interesting post, the user may not spot it – this is likely to be true with Facebook since its EdgeRank algorithm places ‘stories’ on user’s newsfeed based on how much they interact with each other amongst other things. If people were to make friends based on common interests instead, they will more likely interact with each other.
There is also a lack of platforms which help users make friends based on all of their interests, not just one; and any sites that do do this are primarily dating sites.
The Solution
Facebook is a social network for connecting people you already know or people you’ve met and based on the concept of triadic closure, it tries to connect people with weak ties using their strong ties by saying you have mutual friends.
Instead of connecting people based on who they know, a new social networking site could connect people based on their interests instead, with users talking about their interests instead of general happenings in life. In other words, it will be a platform for making new friends and interacting with them based on what they have in common. If done well, it could act as an additional social network alongside popular ones such as Facebook or Twitter.
There is an increased chance that two people will become friends if they attended or attend the same school, college, university, workplace or even an event. The interest-based social network could help new students to a university for example, find new friends who share the same interests – an alternative to joining multiple clubs or societies and only staying with a few of them.
Some more possible features:
- Interest-based news feed – ‘stories’ are tagged with an interest. Users can filter interests.
- Better chat facilities than existing sites like Facebook.
- Can choose to take into account mutual friends when searching for or being recommended new friends.
Similar Sites/Apps
There seems to be no social networking websites with the aim of making friends which focus on people’s interests – anything with a similar concept all seem to be dating websites. However there are social networking sites/apps which focus on one interest, e.g. cooking, gaming, photography, etc. Below are some examples:
- http://instagram.com/ – Photo sharing iPhone app.
- http://thumb.it/ – formally ‘opinionated.it’, a voting/opinion based site and app.
- http://www.foodspotting.com/ – website and app for recommending food from various restaurants and locations.
- http://www.fitocracy.com/ – a fitness social game, compete with other users while getting fit.
http://pinterest.com/ is interest based but lacks real ‘friend-making’ features.
An interesting read: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/18/beyond-facebook-the-rise-of-interest-based-social-networks/
Challenges and issues
- Establishing a user base may be difficult.
- Maintaining the user base, Encouraging users to interact with each other.
- Getting good friend suggestions – there may be lots of people who share lots of the same interests.