In today’s Social Networking event in Woburn Sands, we discussed Facebook. The consensus seemed to be that its use by businesses is increasing – which raised a few eyebrows in the B2B half of the room. Of course, B2B is the wrong framework, but we’ll leave that for another day.
Network Effects
When looking forward, sometimes it helps to look back. SMS messaging was one of the first digital networks we can look at.
There was a time in the 90’s when text messaging didn’t exist on mobile phones, it was only invented in 1992. Once invented, nobody much used it.
Fragmented Networks (don’t work)
The reason; each mobile phone network had it’s own SMS platform. Which essentially meant, that if I was using a mobile phone on Orange then I couldn’t text someone on Vodafone. So we didn’t text each other.
In 1998, and I know because I was there, the networks invented cross platform SMS messaging; interoperability.
It took off. This chart seems to imply that we might send one million billion messages in 2015.
Obvious in hindsight
Can you imagine having three different Email delivery systems too choose from, or three different Internets. Can you imagine not being able to call a landline from a mobile?
It would be a less consistent world.
Networks work well when everyone is on the same one. Its not a wonder that Facebook works well, when you realise the convenience of everyone being on that network. The ubiquity is the attraction.
Separate your activity into groups, by all means. But a single interface to a single network is an incredible draw.