temptations with social networks

I've blogged about things before, and on this day before Easter, one of my readings pointed out to me an important aspect of human life - temptation.

I'm not here to debate morality, but I am here to talk about ethics.

To me ethics are rules that are chosen and determined by ones person, or codified in some sort of document as they pertain to a business (usually either in the mission statement or in some training document).

When it comes to temptations with social networks, we are faced with contrasting desires.

On one hand, the size of an social network can frequently determine its usefulness to its users. For every user past the first, the social network increases in value for each user at first with an exponential rate, then trailing off to flattening to a modicum, along an "S" curve. This is typically because the addition of close friends is more valuable than the addition of unknowns, and on the average the amount of utility that a friend brings will always be higher than a stranger - issues of trust and authority taken into account.

The temptation is that while growing this network as quick as possible, there are various shortcuts you may take.

First off is involuntarily adding people to your network. Several sites do this, I've blogged about them and you can find info about them on google.

The benefits of simply scanning the internet for user profiles, taking them, parsing and then adding them to your database is simple- you get users regardless of whether or not they want to join your service. The con is that they did not agree, and frequently will find your solicitation annoying to say the least. So you simply don't tell them.

What does this strategy get you?

It gets you information but not 'heart'. And 'heart' is what I believe makes a social network worth belonging to. Simply scanning through the intarweb and picking up users' data does not sum up to any sort of 'heart' in the information at all. 'heart' is what causes your users to invite their friends, 'heart' is what gives them empowerment to help police and shape their own network, 'heart' is what makes a social network a home for its users, and not for the corporation running it. The moment anyone gets any idea that they are being used for something, they will cease to give any 'heart' and pull back, as well as forget why they came and blow your popsicle stand.

The book I was reading gave this example to me: After the Chernobyl aftermath, the Russian government called upon citizens of the USSR to donate to the children of the families affected by the disaster. It was like pulling teeth, because you cannot legislate generosity. In the same way as the US attempts to legislate morality, you cannot cause people to care about contributing to your developing community of you just add them. Leading your users to water does not make them drink.

Another temptation is to incentivize people to join your network - giving them a reason to sign up that does not exist in your value proposition. This is akin to hiring employees that will work for you purely because of the salary.

And as anyone who knows the attitude of that type of person (I can, having been that type of person) you show up and do exactly as you're told, no more, no less. There is no such thing as the extra mile, there is no pride in your work, no need to innovate or show off, just everything cut and dry, grab the paycheck and get out of there.

And that's the type of users you'll have in your community - if they stay. More than likely they'll bounce and take off once they realize their probability of getting the reward, the door-prize, or the max user accounts they could have created is gone. You'll get a flood of users at the beginning - expanding at a dizzying pace, then all of a sudden, your sign up rates will floor and trickle.

Your users will not contribute, they'll only send emails to friends to join so they can possibly get in on the loot, and once that is up, you'll have a bunch of junk throwaway emails and no user participation.

Temptation 3: Selling what was given to you freely
Let's face it, as the operators of social networks, we're given tremendous amounts of data, in trust between owners of a site and those that reside on it- when you give me your data, you know that I will have it, but hope that I won't use it to do anything funny.
This temptation exists after "hitting it big", which is to use that information in a way that either invades your privacy, or allows me to monetize off the data unfairly.
Sites that I've seen this happen - have started out as cool, fun and easy to use sites that provide use and value to the residents as well as visitors. Then all of a sudden the word "monetize" enters their brains and they somehow feel justified in reaping the rewards owed to the hard workers who made their site so rich with information to begin with.

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Temptation is out there, but weathering it and making correct choices at every fork in the road not only gives you the ability to sleep well, it also exposes your character.

I have a great deal of respect for Craigslist, they have created a site of extreme value, ensuring that the value exists to their users, not shareholders. They pull a moderate (ok, savage) salary from charging people who already would have paid more at other venues, and yet maintain an air of freedom and community that is hard to match in any other network.

They've faced temptation, and stuck to their guns, which I guess is what being ethical is all about.