Social network space a tad crowded?

by Mathew on May 11, 2006 · Comments

I just had to post something here about this because it totally blew me away. Not to pick on the folks at Alice Hill’s RealTechNews, but I was just reading a post they had about something, and down near the bottom there was a gigantic line of icons, each of which represented a social-networking website where you could click and either submit the post or bookmark it or whatever.

I’ve included a screenshot here because I found it so incredible — there are 25 icons, from a little animated TV set to a star and a sheaf of wheat. They represent everything from Digg.com and del.icio.us to news sites such as Newsvine.com and Fark, to lesser-known bookmarking sites such as Spurl.com and RawSugar, to ones I’ve never heard of such as LinkAGoGo and Scuttle.com.

If you’re a VC and you’re thinking about investing in the social networking space, I suggest you take a look at these and despair. And this isn’t even all of them — I can think of a few that aren’t even on the list (maybe their icons weren’t cute enough), such as Diigo, eSnips, Dogear, Kaboodle, LookLater, StumbleUpon and Frassle.

socialnetworkicons

Share:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Ma.gnolia
  • NewsVine
  • SphereIt
  • StumbleUpon

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  • Mathew, totally and completely agree... and doesn't the eye glaze over when you see more than 5 of these at the end of a post? 10?

    But I have a big "but" here: would you really call digg, reddit, etc. the social network space? Social network to me is myspace and friendster and facebook, where "the deal" is personal profiles and friend gathering and finding bands. Newsvine does a great job with profiles but that's more of a personal presence and much less a "personal space."
  • Mathew Ingram
    That's a fair point, Eric -- but I think all of those sites are social in the sense that they allow you to share, whether it's bookmarks or news headlines or comments on news articles, or whatever. It's true that they may not all compete head-to-head with each other, but they are all social media in a broad sense I think.

    Thanks for the comment.

    Mathew
  • I'm looking forward to seeing a 10x10 matrix of favicons. In fact, I don't know why nobody has made a Web 2.0 favicon matrix in the manner of the logo lists, it would look hilarious.
  • There indeed seems to be an over-abundance of these sites out there. I've signed up for one or two, but don't actually use them. What does that mean? :)

    Personally, I've not found them useful yet - maybe its just the way I work. I've recently decided to go back and try NewsVine a bit, just to see if it fits my usage pattern, etc... You do have to wonder how many of these crazy little icons will end up on many blogs.

    Paul - that would really demonstrate how silly its getting.
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