Doodle: Where Do Social Networks Originate? The Young and the Geeky
Here's something I have been thinking about - as illustrated by the above doodle I threw into my notebook tonight. Perhaps this is too simplistic, but I have a hunch that if you want to zero in on the up-and-coming social networks, there are really just two demographic groups to study: the young, the geeky and sometimes both.
Think about all of the social networks over the years that were at first dominated by young people and then later went mainstream. Now think about the communities that first developed an audience with geeks and then later when supernova. These aren't mutually exclusive either. YouTube in many ways was a crossover hit. What's your take on this theory? Are there other demographics that make or break a social network the way these two do? I can't think of any. Most follow in the footsteps of the young and the geeky.Image credits: Teen on Flickr by TCollinsPhoto and Scoble and His Gear by Thomas Hawk.
Comments 18 Comments
There are networks popularized by people trying to...
A. Find themselves (ex. StumbleUpon, Pandora)
B. Surround themselves (ex. Friendfeed, Facebook)
C. Define themselves (ex. Tumblr, Posterous)
D. All of the above (Twitter)
"Digitall" - use digital tech because they love using digitial tech
"Digicool" - use digital tech because it's cool
"Digitool" - use digital tech as a tool to fulfill a need and that's it
Not wanting to self promote, but you can read more here: http://bit.ly/4yMfN
I'm neither young, nor geeky, but I love connecting with people and therefore enjoy Twitter and LinkedIn. I agree with Brad's suggested "mommy blogger" niche. In general, women are natural networkers. Blogging is an easy way to reach out to others with similar interests. And, you don't need to leave your home to do so, which makes it appealing to women with small kids at home.