I had the opportunity over the Thanksgiving holiday to read Karel Baloun’s book “Inside Facebook” (buy the book here ). Karel was one of the first engineers hired by Facebook and he offers a rare inside look into the inner working of Facebook. When you read the section on “How to build a site without any tools or controls” it makes you wonder how in the world did Facebook become the 2nd biggest social network in the U.S.?
I recently caught up with Karel and asked him some questions about his time at Facebook as well as what he sees as the future of the social networking space,
Q. What is the biggest challenge/problem that Facebook faces and how will they respond?
Dilution of their network. Facebooks hope that new networks will be as saturated and vibrant as their college networks. I haven’t seen any data, but just in terms of global pageviews/alexa, I don’t believe that this is happening.
FaceBook will keep rolling out features, to increase user interest.
Q. Facebook recently moved away from the .edu market and opened up to everyone. Was this a good move or not?
Necessary. As only a niche player, even in that lucrative segment, they would have had trouble justifying their desired valuation. Also, this is good for members, in that it allows me to network with anyone, and talk about the site to anyone.
Q. MySpace is the 80# Gorilla in the social network space. Can anyone knock them off and if so, who stands the best chance?
There is room for a large number of niche players, and several leaders. MySpace and Facebook serve different sets of needs, and can easily coexist.
Q. Where will social networking be in 2-3 years? What changes do you foresee happening in the sector?
Lots of niche players. Open mashable-style interoperability via APIs for the leaders and smaller players.
Interesting answers. I agree with Karel in that there is no reason why MySpace and Facebook cannot co-exist. Also if you look at the downstream data from MySpace, you see that a lot of their users also visit other smaller niche sites, which helps make the social media space more dynamic and active.
If you are interested in social networking, then may I suggest that your add Karel’s book to your holiday list. You can order it here.
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Glad you enjoyed it David. If you or your readers have any other questions, I’d enjoy talking with you – either by email or via our book’s blog.
Good interview, I wish he would have given more insight to why he thinks these niche players can exist.
800# gorilla not 80#
I think that the nicke markets offer a tremendous opportunity for other social sites to flouris.I think that the niche markets offer a tremendous opportunity for other social sites to flourish. The downstream data from MySpace indicates that MySapce users belong to more than one social network. And we are starting to see some smaller niche sites like Linkedin really take off.