Did you heard the news? Steven Spielberg is launching "The Rising," a new social networking site this summer for ghost and UFO enthusiasts. It's caused a mild stir on the Internet, with predictably breathless media coverage: TechCrunch has an animated version of the logo on YouTube! io9 says there will be orginal video content investigating ghost and alien sightings!
I can't help but wonder though, if anyone BUT Steven Spielberg was pitching this ideas to investors, would the site even get off the ground? io9 sums up the whole thing with an appopriately absurd headline that would be enough to scare any investor off the project if it was sans the Oscar-winning director's name: "Spielberg to Make Facebook for UFO Abductees."
All jokes aside, Spielberg deserves some credit on one count: he may be pushing social networking into an entirely new realm—specialization. While Facebook and MySpace currently have networks and groups that people with similar predelictions can join, few (if any) prominent social sites are all about shared interests, barring a few music sites. As Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson recently noted:
"The problem with the social networking destinations like Facebook and MySpace is that they're not about anything—they're about Facebook and MySpace."
While the premise of Spielberg's site is still out-there, Anderson's point does lend some credibility to the idea that a truly niche social networking site could be a hit. Any thoughts?
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What's old is new... Check out iwasabducted.com. After the initial nausea fades—its design is downright repugnant—you'll notice it's a site for (yes) abductees. Brave on through the splash page and you'll notice they have something called a "discussion forum". This is where concerned abductees can log on, share and compare their experiences of being beamed up and probed, commiserate and help each other adjust to being back in reality, great stuff like that.
Online forums have been around a long time. Add a feature where you can upload a few pictures of yourself, tell people where you live and what bands you like, etc—the vanity factor—and you have a social network.
Themed social networks are a lame idea not only because they're effectively themed discussion forums, but because the capability for them already exists in existing social networks. They're called "groups". MySpace, Facebook, maybe even the scary-looking FaceParty, already have a ton of them. If there isn't one for your special niche, you can start your own.
Maybe Facebook isn't "about" anything but Facebook, but it allows you to make it be about whatever you want. "The Rising" is scoped small by design. It's a splinter and there's nothing new about it. Lame.
No kudos for Spielberg on this one. He should, instead, take that money and make another Jurassic Park. Those were awesome.
—richard
16:04, May 22nd, 2008
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