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Prompted from a post at O’Reilly blogs, discussing the upcoming regional wars between social networks:

Actually, the more probable scenario is that (closed) social networks become less important over the long term. With more web applications incorporating social features, users will gradually “leave” closed social networks altogether. Already, I know less and less people who use Facebook regularly. Most people I know log in only when they receive a “friend” request - sadly hugs, gifts, zombies and pokes are losing their allure.

I have to say I can’t agree more. The gist of the post is that leader social networks — Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, Bebo, LJ and Friendster — have grown what they could in their respective main markets. What follows is competition to dethrone regionally incumbent social networks, probably leading to data portability.

However, walled gardens have a lot to gain from being walled. Tearing down walls is contrary to their beliefs and will be a slow process. It is much more natural that a new type of social network appears. One more classical-internet-like: distributed, standardized on common protocols and open. The market is there — users already know and like the concept of social networks — and there is a lot to gain from openness.

Confesso que o sucesso do Myspace sempre me fez alguma confusão. Numa era em que se prega nas esquinas todas a necessidade da usabilidade, dos designs limpos e da simplicidade, o site (talvez) com mais sucesso na web 2.0 é um que é feio como um dia de tempestade. A explicação pode ser esta:

GigaOM: The Future of Social Networks - Communication
One of MySpace’s greatest innovations was something ridiculously simple… the “wall”. As most know, the wall is the messaging area of a user’s profile page, where any “friend” of the user can post comments. I describe it as “ridiculously simple” because the wall is nothing more than a common bulletin board. However, the foresight to repurpose a simple bulletin board to enable communications among a social network of people, all centered on the profiled individual him/herself, proved to be brilliant. More than any other utility for self-expression, it is the wall that keeps members coming back over and over again, often several times a day

Simples demais. Ou não…