I personally watched a trend when myspace was beat out by facebook, about 3 years ago. At first facebook was only a place for college students like me, but eventually it branched out to high school students also being able to use it, and then everyone else could too. So it is definitely possible to beat out any big dog in a respective field, but you gotta be innovative and be that much better than your competitor.

Till then,

Jean

As for the rest of the article, I like how you led into the phenomenom that is facebook, and to a lesser extent other social media offerings on the web, and how they are self contained communities, requiring different points of access from what search engines offer.

Early communities are small and lack critical mass. You have to provide that or people will see it and think… no one else here so it must not be that great.

Thanks for all the sharing and tips! It’s really relevant, useful and up-to-date.

Always looking forward to your newsletters.

Derrick Ng

Thanks for all the sharing.

Enjoy reading your posting and articles from time to time. Not forgetting your newsletters which include up-to-date first hand informations and strategies.

Hope to learn more from you..

Derrick Ng

Lots to digest in this article and it certainly the need to keep your finger on the pulse and to be ready to adapt to the changing geography of the Internet and not get stuck doing things the same way just because it worked in the past. Thanks Yaro for the wake-up call.

I’ve been avoiding Facebook these days for the very reasons you mention. It’s great in a lot of ways because it helps you stay connected with people, but it’s so self contained, it gets to the point where I don’t even bother talking to people face to face, and opt for communicating via the online community. Oh, to find the balance.

Thanks for the informative post. Appreciate the insight.

Make a few posts of your own and invite replies, this will also inspire more posts from members. You shouldn’t really need to develop multiple personalities to respond to yourself.

Just my $0.02 worth

Until a forum has a couple hundred posts and is “broken in” there is a very good chance that it will quickly turn into a ghost town.

The only way I can think of to really stimulate a forum is to create a few aliases and talk to yourself for a while with hopes that others will join in. It seems a little dishonest to me, but no other methods come to mind.

Any thoughts?

I am going to launch more sites that are supposed to be running of user created content, It´s really interesting and they can grow extremely fast.

And when they are up and running they don´t need to much attention.

I know someday I will find that certain product to strike it rich. Until then I just continue to learn and grow.

Matt

But I don’t think it’s something many people can pull off. For one successful venture like Facebook or Youtube, there are probably hundreds or even thousands of ventures that failed.

I feel that authority blogging (which you advocate anyway) is much more achievable for the average person.

Great post.

It is interesting that you talk about your cousin saying that e-mail is pretty much dead, and how Facebook has in a way taking over that role in terms of facilitating communication between people.

The only reason I am still on Facebook is because FB acts as my updated contact list. Instead of having to make sure I have the updated e-mail addresses of those I know, I simply send them a msg on Facebook, and can be 99% sure they will receive it. In my opinion, FB is really a glorified contact book. Twitter may replace FB for those simply using FB like I do as a contact list.

The funny thing happened when I joined Facebook… I started to add all these people I knew from high school, college, work….and at one point was well over 600+ “friends”, but after a while I realized why I lost touch with them in the first place…. we really never talked or had anything in common to continue the relationship. So, in essence is wasn’t a lost connection, but a valid non-connection in the first place.

Today, I have pruned my Facebook friend list down to 140, and even then many of them are more acquaintances can true friends. I only keep a very tight circle of true friends which if I were to call them for a favor they would greatly extend their hand and I likewise.

It had not occurred to me that email has lost out to facebook! I have been wondering why there is so much yak about facebook being a major threat to yahoo, Google etc and now it makes sense!

Thank you for a very nice post.

I particularly like the reminder on social proof and authorities.

I think “the chasm” also plays a role where mavens will be especially important during the early adoption gaps.