z*******n
发帖数: 1034 | 1 http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/14/social-discovery-is-not-about
“Social networking is what your social life looks like today, and social
discovery is what your social life might look like tomorrow,” said
ReadWrite editor-in-chief during his opening remarks on Wednesday’s Glimpse
, a conference focused on social discovery.
In simpler terms: Social discovery is internet company’s attempt at
suggesting you things you don’t but should know, based on various factors
including other people’s tastes and algorithms.
After chatting with a few different people in the space and even attending
the Glimpse Social Discovery conference in San Francisco, two things became
clear: As with everything, mobile is the next frontier, and location is the
“it” factor. Second, people don’t want to meet new people — unless it’s
to “date” them (for varying definitions of the term “date”).
Location because of mobile
“Mobile changes everything. We have a device on us, it’s much more of
personal,” said Tagged cofounder and chief executive Greg Tseng in an
interview with VentureBeat. “And I think that mobile makes the social
discovery opportunity even bigger.”
Unlike desktops and even laptops, which people often share, phones are
usually a one-to-one ratio. Each people has their own, it’s personalize to
their taste, it’s almost always with them, and so on.
In the case of shopping, mobile devices not only mean a whole different user
interface and experience, but also a new realm of possibilities — location
being a very important one.
“Yes, we are an online site, and previously you had your wireless laptop,
and that’s how you shopped. Now you have your phone,” said Zappos head of
Mobile Aki Iida to VentureBeat in an interview. Zappos has both a mobile
site and a mobile app.
“Now you have customers going anywhere and accessing Zappos anytime.
Previously, we knew that people were sitting at a desk and looking at things
. Now people are on the move, and while they’re out there, things may
inspire them to shop for a product,” he added.
While Apple’s iBeacon is not something that would be of much use to Zappos
as it doesn’t have brick-and-mortar stores, the idea that location gives
clues as to what a Zappos customer could be thinking about purchasing is
very real.
Tagged, a social discovery network, is also in the process of leveraging
mobile and its ability to add location to equation. The company is currently
revamping its mobile app, as half of it traffic happens on mobile. Mobile
also means it can leverage features such as “Meet people nearby,” adding
even more likelihood of a connection between folks on the network.
“Probably the biggest mobile breakout is [online dating app] Tinder,” said
Tseng.
Along with gamifying the profile browsing process and a very focused way of
evaluating profiles (read: based on their picture), Tinder also capitalizes
on location, feeding people a stream of potential matches that are
reasonably nearby.
This is important. The idea of getting matched and striking up a
conversation with someone in a different city, state, country, or even
continent is not appealing when seeking romantic matches. It eliminates the
core aspect of a romantic relationship, which is the in-person hangout.
Alex Capecelatro and his team built At the Pool, a social networking and
discovery app created specifically around the idea that people would want to
connect with folks that are nearby, either because of mutual interests or
because of an event or activity happening close by. Again, people nearby
that you could potentially meet up with easily and continue vibing with.
Ironically, Capecelatro and his team are now leaving At the Pool behind (
though taking its content and data with them) and will soon release a new
app called Yeti. More about Yeti in a bit.
People don’t want new friends
This is probably the topic where there is most disagreement.
If you ask people like Tseng, he will tell you that while helping people
connect with others and make friends is difficult, it’s not impossible. It
just requires a good recipe of interest-based engagement plus a few more
ingredients, and voila — people making friend connections. Tseng’s company
, Tagged, launched around the same time as Facebook and spent the first
three years competing with it to become the social network of choice. Then
in 2007, it decided to go into social discovery and help people connect with
others, mostly through common interests.
And then there’s Capecelatro’s camp.
“Making friends is not only a challenge, I just don’t think it works
online… It’s not natural, it’s not what we do in our everyday life,” he
said in a phone conversation with VentureBeat.
Even Tseng has conceded that “Not that many people wake up in the morning
and say ‘I want a new friend.’ This need to make new friends and meet new
people is a much more subconscious thing… You can’t pitch an app: ‘Here’
s a friend search app.’”
Capecelatro’s app, At the Pool, sought to build a way for people to gather
around local events and happenings and to hopefully make friends and
connections in the process. After all, aren’t common interests, in this
case events and other topics, supposed to get people to interact and
eventually make new friends?
“What we realized is that none of that mattered. What they were using the
app for was to post content,” not meet new people, said Capecelatro.
“It’s not that it’s my gut feeling that it’s a bad idea, it’s that the
data says it’s a bad idea,” he added.
The only exception, according to Capecelatro, is meeting new people to date
(or whatever). That works great — see case of Tinder.
Capecelatro’s new app, Yeti, is all about the information people were
sharing on At the Pool, both location-specific (local restaurants, events,
etc.) as well as location-agnostic (movies, music, and so on). The app also
has a similar “swiping of cards” interface, much like Tinder’s.
“We’re not going to show you people,because its not about people anymore,
we’re just going to show you content. It’s like Yelp-meets-Tinder,” he
said. “We built this with the idea that most people just want to consume
content”
His belief is that while people aren’t looking to make new friends through
apps; they are looking for new content (e.g. Reddit) and information about
local happenings (e.g. Yelp, Twitter). If personal connections, online or in
person, do result, then that’s great. However, it’s not what people are
looking for.
Tseng also admitted that connecting people with friends is a more indirect
process. He thinks of social discovery of other people as a party: You can
go to a party, maybe even a couple of friends, and either hang out with your
own friends, make new ones, or none of the above. This is of course the
direction he wants to take Tagged into.
But there’s still a need to connect with others, even outside of romantic
relationships, but again, it’s tricky and it’s not about active looking
for new “friendships,” so to speak.
“If you look at apps like Whisper or Secret, the need is just connecting
with other people and engaging,” said Capecelatro.
And while one could argue that the people one interacts with on Secret are
actual friends and friends-of-friends, Twitter is a perfect example of
connecting and engaging with all kinds of people. I’ve found Twitter to be
a place for anything from pure information, one-off exchanges, online-only
“friendships,” and even friendships I’ve even taken into the offline
world.
So maybe the future of social discovery is really about making your phone
the perfect exploration tool as you roam around the real world.
More about the companies and people from this article:
Tinder Zappos.com
Tinder finds out who likes you nearby, and connects you with them if you're
also interested. It all started with the realization that there are many
apps that connect us with people we already know, but none that do a great
job of h... read more »
Powered by VBProfiles
We want hands-on expert reports on common marketing automation systems. If
you use marketing automation, share your story ... and set your own price
for others to learn from it. (Here's an example.)d |
|
