Niche Social Network Philosophy

I've always been fascinated by technology, philosophy, values and how technology affects society. One of the most oft misunderstood sayings by McLuhan is "the medium is the message". While I won't get into a lengthy debate on what McLuhan really meant by this, it's suffice to say that Social Media and Social Networking is a new medium and which message is being conveyed by that medium is currently difficult to quantify.  Incendia Media is very interested in seeing how niche specific, well branded social networks can play a part in the evolving world of Internet based communication and commerce. I was reading Technology and Values again the other day (its a collection of essays related to science, technology, public health, economics, the environment and ethical theory) and came across this incredibly powerful quote that can be related directly to our business model:

Quote:

"It is hard to know how one could decide such a question, but Heidegger has a message even for those who hold that we, in this pluralized modern world, should not expect and do not need one all embracing community. Those who, from Dostoievsky, to the hippies, to Richard Rorty, think of communities as local enclaves in an otherwise impersonal sociecty, still owe us an account of what holds these local communities together. If Dostoievsky and Heidegger are right, each local community still needs its local god - its particular incarnation of what the community is up to. In that case we are again led to the view that releasement is not enough, and to the modified Heidegger slogan that only some new gods can save us."

Now, the social networking world isn't sitting around waiting for new gods, but it is waiting for localized communities focused on strong "dominant ideas" that help focus the identity of the community. People do crave local enclaves rather than a large, bland, impersonal society, which is why every social networking site small or large is made up of small networks and not one massive one. However, those small networks lose their identity in a social network like myspace or facebook. Ning has taken some first steps in allowing people to define their own local enclaves but doesn't provide the authoritative content the communities need and doesn't provide brands or a strong sense of identity.

Our unique take on the solution is to provide small, niche specific social networks that serve to offer groups a dominant idea or "brand" with which they can identify. However, online social networking creates its own unique problems in terms of how groups operate in the context of "normal" social behaviors. Issues like needs identification, reward pathways, "online" self actualization, etc are all issues that are currently poorly understood and quantified. However, our research team is constantly engaged in building the tools and research to understand and quantify these issues. Interesting times!