My friend’s friend recently started his own social networking site, careeb. He built that, single handedly, from scratch. I had few suggestions for him based on my experience with social networking sites-

1. What’s the aim of this SN (Social Networking site)? There is no dearth of SNs so if something which stands apart from the crowd has to be created. Facebook, was previously meant especially for .edu email holders, gave the visitors an unique platform to interact with like-minded people. An SN meant exclusively for a particular age group or gender group or ethical group or social group would be more successful than a generic one.

 2. If a SN has to be successful then it has to offer practical advantages like jobs etc. Most people join because they want to make more friends–> social advantage. So if a SN has to be successful then it had to offer an unique service to its visitors. The days of orkut style SNs are over. And most of the Indian SNs (bigadda,yaari etc) exposing everyone on a social platform, I have no idea if any Indian Site focuses on professional platform. India has a huge pool of professional who would love a SN site, which will not just be a forum but will also have a personal touch.

3. Myspace was such a huge sensation because they were the first to harness this human tendency to interact and convert that to an online meeting place. Even though people would want to diversify based on their biasness or prejudices, there can’t be another Myspace or Facebook or Orkut!

Its much easier said than done but if you want success then something unique has to be created. I will lay stress on 2 things

• Innovation with service oriented approach
• Catering to a specific group and then diversify

With regard to India, I think the best bet is to create a network of only professionals so as to ease out the professional knowledge sharing. None of the present social networking sites are good places to talk about professional topics, they are more political in nature and thus cater to only extremes. A professional network could work wonders for professionals seeking knowledge and new job opportunities.

What do you think?