Specialised social networks sprout

Each new technology that comes around offers us new ways to maintain our social networks and communicate with our contacts. The telephone, email, text messages and the web not only allowed new patterns of interaction but the reduction in the amount of effort required for each social gesture facilitated growth in the number of networks we participate in. With the accelerated development of social technologies, rather than just communication technologies, in the last ten years, a new trend is is developing: Instead of mere channels to support our networking, technology is providing us with virtual places where we can go interact with our networks.

The manifestation of networks as sites means that it is becoming more explicit which networks we belong to. Explicit purpose brings value over and above mere networking. Generic networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are building groups within their networks to cater for higher value communities but a lot of the activity in the field are new networks being launched. Specific networks for specific communities with specific functionality.

If a community already exists, the natural progression is to support it with a social network. Reuters Messaging users is one such community in the financial sector, and Reuters recently announced the imminent launch of a social network for the finance community (presumably called Reuters Space). Run by the Messaging team it will be interesting to see if Reuters has plans to open the network to people who don't use their Messaging product. The company may quickly find that, if executed right, the social network is much more valuable than the Messaging subscriptions it generates - an argument for opening up the product. The potential is huge: A platform through which Reuters' research can be consumed and 1-click access to Reuters' own sales and trading tools. Of course, the killer financial social network would be vendor neutral, offering research and trading services from Bloomberg, Reuters and others; if Reuters doesn't build it, someone else will.

Expect lots of new social network sites to appear in near future. Some will be so specialised that only few of us will hear of them but most will try to strike the balance between a large membership and shared purpose. Some of the networks will be invitation-only, others will require special conditions for membership. A common theme will be added transactional capability: The fewest possible clicks from intent to shared research to recommendations to transaction. According to Stowe Boyd, "in the future, essentially all online consumer commerce will be conducted through social means." From community to market is a natural progression.

If you are part of a social network but there is not yet a website to cater for it (or you haven't been invited), it has never been easier to build one.

Tags: social network Reuters LinkedIn Facebook Reuters Messaging Reuters Space financial markets Stowe Boyd