Some Insight on the Public vs. Private Debate
fyi…nothing ground breaking but thought this was worth the read hence the longer clip.
Two non related issues:
1) This clip was taken from my google reader, not sure why its showing multi-clip with second source (feedproxy?) Derek???
2) The author references Sharing from Google reader via twitter…did not know this was possible…anyone else know about this? Going to check this out now
DG
One of the most important concepts in product design for social apps is public versus private spacesRead more at feedproxy.google.com
- Private spaces are better for scaling across different demographics long-term, since it keeps different audiences segmented from each other. The downside is that you need to conquer the critical mass problem over-and-over again
- Public spaces are better for getting to critical mass once, and generating fun. But the downside is that if you randomly get a bunch of Portuguese-speaking members, then your entire site might become known as “that Brazilian social network.”
Ideally, you’d like to do all private spaces, but the downside is that it’s very hard to get momentum going. But if you win, then you win big, since it’s likely your product will be adopted by a very horizontal audience.
- Central homepage with info “pushed” to me by my connections
- List of people I’m following or Friend list or Addressbook
- Searchable (but maybe not browsable?) central directory of possible friends/contacts/connections
In a way, applications like email, Skype, social networks, Twitter, and others all share common components of this design. I think that ultimately this is a great communication-centric design pattern that can be reused in any social product.
Read more at andrewchenblog.com
