FreshNetworks Blog

The afternoon sees a series of large seminars (we must have had close to 800+ people in the first one). The discussion was about whether social networks were the new cities and much of the debate centered on how these two crucibles of humankind compare and how they each deal with similar issues. The panel included the Richard Leese (Leader of Manchester City Council), Michael Birch (founder of Bebo.com) and Jon Gisby (Director of New Media and Technology at Channel Four). With Charles Leadbeater in the chair it looked set to be an interesting and informed debate.

For Leese there was no doubt that virtual worlds were not a replacement for real ones – you need cities and need to encourage and facilitate innovation and creativity by creating physical spaces that support this. If you do this and encourage people to the city then it will flourish. Whilst this point wasn’t made directly during the session, I think this also describes perfectly how you create a successful social network.

Birch explained how the early stages of Bebo.com were tough work. Creating an environment that people wanted to come to online and then getting the first few members who joined the site to take part and return. There are thousands of social networks out there, but only some reach the stage of maturity where they are vibrant and successful. The process of creating inviting spaces and then nurturing the first people to join you seem similar across cities and social networks.

Perhaps this returns to a theme that we saw earlier in the day. Whether you are building a city like Manchester or a social network like Bebo.com, you are dealing with the same commodity – human beings. We are social creatures and in both cases you want to create a network of these creatures, limited either geographically (in the case of the city) or by their online activity (in the case of a social network).

In both cases the route to success is simple:

1. Build an environment that is appealing to the people you are trying to attract
2. Make an extra special effort to attract your first members
3. Work with them and nurture them to ensure that they stay and attract their own networks
4. Allow the space to grow and develop as you get more people, and allow people to contribute to building an environment that’s right for them