Connecting the Social Graph: Member Overlap at OpenSocial and Facebook
Written by Alex Patriquin (contact - e-mail) -- November 12th, 2007 | Recommend ThisOpenSocial is a Google-led initiative to get into social networking (in a bigger way than Orkut) and, purportedly, to create “open standards” so users can access their data on any social network. The project is still taking shape, but it looks like it will give users access to widgets across a bunch of social networks, at least as a first phase.
Looking at the OpenSocial coalition of social networks, some, like LinkedIn, clearly fall into the professional branches of the “social graph” or that virtual map of all our relationships. Other social networks, like Friendster are much more personal in nature.
Facebook, though not in OpenSocial, may be the only social network to have criss-crossed professional and personal boundaries, at least among internet professionals. Lastly, the family branch of the social graph, can be found on sites like Ancestry.com.
As developers think about connecting the disparate branches of the social graph, either through widget access, personal data portability or an aggregator for easy management, Compete asks, “How do the user communities of the social graph overlap today?”
This chart shows the members of any 2 social networks as a percentage of the members of the social network in the purple row. So, for instance, 20% of MySpace members are also Facebook members.
- Meanwhile, 64% of Facebook members also belong to MySpace. This asymmetry makes sense when you consider MySpace has nearly 3x the unique visitors of Facebook and a few years head start.
- Bebo, Hi5 and Friendster all share more than 49% of their members with MySpace.
- Plaxo, Salesforce and Viadeo share more members with LinkedIn (the largest professional social network by 4x) than with either MySpace or Facebook.
- LinkedIn shares 42% of its members with Facebook and 32% with MySpace.
- Ning, which lets users customize their own social networks, has greater overlap with both MySpace and Facebook than with LinkedIn.
We can see the social graph, as it is online today, consists of mainly personal relationships, though a large group of users belong exclusively to professional social networks and many belong to both. A collective solution to bringing the entire social graph online might do well to take a closer look at the particular needs of this early adoption crossover group.
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November 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I find it interesting that MySpace users don’t branch out as far as Facebook’s primary users. This graph shows you just how far ahead the big two are over every other site of their kind.
November 13th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Saleforce.com is a social network?
November 14th, 2007 at 10:21 am
@Frank - Salesforce.com is not a social network, which we should have pointed out. However, Salesforce.com is closely related to social networks in that CRM platofrms serve up professional contact and relationship management.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Frank, Saleforce is a part of OpenSocial.
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3708831
November 27th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
How would Digg and StumbleUpon fit in here?
November 29th, 2007 at 6:13 am
@Luigison: they don’t fit here because they have purpose, other than social netwrk.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Could VOIS.com become another Facebook?
Since the advent of social networking sites in 1997, the phenomenon has taken the world by storm. Once called a passing fad social networking is now a thriving business, in 2006, alone it garnered over $6.5 billion in revenue, while the three biggest players, connected over 280 million subscribers in a way never known before to society. This form of connection has drawn the globe closer together than anyone ever predicted.
Just a few years ago, MySpace.com, solely dominated the social networking site market with almost 80% of the social networking site market but now websites like Facebook entered the social networking site race becoming the 8th most viewed website in the U.S. according to web measuring traffic site Alexa.com. Facebook.com which originally started at Harvard University , later extended to Boston area schools and beyond has mystified many naysayer’s with its explosive growth over the last three years and an astounding asking price of $10-$15 billion dollars for the company. But who will be next?
Who will carry the torch into the future?
With the rapid growth of the likes of MySpace and Facebook the burning question on everyone’s tongue is who is next? As with any burgeoning field many newcomers will and go but only the strong and unique will survive. Already many in the field have stumbled, as indicated by their traffic rankings, including heavily funded Eons.com with its former Monster.com founder at the helm, Hooverspot.com and Boomj.com with its ridiculous Web 3.0 slogan. There are many possibilities but it is a dark horse coming fast into view and taking hold in the social networking site market at the global level that has us interested the website - Vois.com. Less than a year ago, this newest contender directed at 25 to 50 years olds graced the absolute bottom of the list with its website ranked at a dismal 5,000,000. With not so much as a squeak this rising star has come from the depths of anonymity growing an eye-popping 10,000% in less than one year to make itself known worldwide now sporting a recent web traffic ranking in the 5,000 range.
Understanding the Market
When people in the United States hear about Facebook and other services such as MySpace the widely held belief is that these websites are globally used and are as synonymous as Google or Yahoo in regards to having a global market presence. This idea is completely misguided. Now it is true that both of these social networking giants are geared to service the western industrialized cultures but when it comes to the markets of the future, the emerging markets, they have virtually no presence. The sites themselves are heavily Anglicized, and Facebook in particular has an extremely complicated web interface that eludes even those familiar with the language, making them virtually inaccessible in other parts of the world even where English is the main language.
Our interest in Vois is global and geopolitical. Simply, Vois understands this lack of market service and is building its provision model on a global research concept developed by Goldman Sachs a few years ago. The concept is basically predicated on the belief that beginning now using current economic models and continuing those models over the next few decades will lead to a major paradigm shift in the world regarding nations who are current economic leaders like those being the USA and the other members of the G-7 and those who will become dominant in the world economy mainly the BRICs. In the Goldman research report Goldman highlights the fastest growing nations and has dubbed them with the two acronyms BRIC’s and N-11. BRIC standing for ( Brazil, R ussia, India and China) representing the fastest growing economies and N-11 or what are being called the Next-11 representing the next 11 countries to emerge as future important economies such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. This approach has already been implemented with some success with companies like Orkut, who has over 80% of the market share in Brazil and large holdings in India and Eastern Europe . Other providers such as Hi5 have the world as their focus and are making great strides in global market share while Facebook builds itself into a niche provider wholly unready to take on the world.
A Growing Presence
As Vois breaks new ground in the world market pursuing previously ignored demographics, they afford themselves the opportunity of tremendous growth unfettered by the giants such as Facebook and MySpace. While cultivating this new user base, Vois will also be able to monopolize on their business revenue strategies, creating an area of commerce that will make their site increasingly attractive to business and users the world over. This concept, dubbed sCommerce, allows the subscriber to promote themselves in both personal and a professional fashion while giving them the option of setting up shop on the site. This approach will allow business owners to target their market in a way never before allowing them to focus on interested groups of individuals while providing follow-up without having to commit to wasteful blanket campaigns that are typically the order of the day. This newfound border will allow Vois to explore new revenue models while provide a tremendous service for both their regular subscribers and business subscribers alike. With all this going on, rapid traffic growth to the site, we pose the question - is Vois the next Facebook, it sure looks like it but only time will tell….
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 am
Hello,
I’m a French Blogger and I find your post very interesting. I would like to know how you got these results.
Many thanks.
Emilie Ogez
January 26th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Do you share my mind that a perfect Social-Network-Aggregator may share ~100% of its members with anothers networks ?
That’s mean Facebook is far away to be as good social aggregator as they claim :o” .oO(99% members of LiFE2Front are members of Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr)
February 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
What about Livejournal… it is older than myspace, has more people. I remember there was a time you had to have an invite to even HAVE one. it is still alive and kicking…
February 16th, 2008 at 10:22 am
We neeed more widgets. Have these on my desk by monday ;.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Very interesting study and analysis. Love to know what’s the source for this data. I am having a hard time believing some of the data
April 11th, 2008 at 12:20 am
We’re a mid size business. We use CRM and Sales Force Automation from LongJump.com. We’re very happy with their products and service.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am
very interesting!