Here's my crazy social network setup:
- I submit status updates to Twitter, which auto-posts to Facebook and LinkedIn (and now Buzz).
- I submit pictures (mainly of my son Eli) to Posterous, which auto-posts to Facebook (and has eliweinberg.com pointing to it).
- I write blog posts, which get auto-posted by feedburner to Twitter.
- I upload videos to YouTube, which I then post to Posterous, and which get auto-posted now to Buzz as well.
- I upload videos directly to Facebook because they come out better that way (in HD).
- I submit stories to Hacker News when appropriate.
- I get auto-emailed comments from basically everything.
- I check twitter and Facebook (and probably now Buzz) regularly.
I think I'm way out of the mainstream on this behavior because I'm (a) highly technical; (b) want the widest possible audience for my blog; and (c) want anyone who desires to be able to get the latest pictures of my son as easily as possible.
The mainstream is never going to do the above. But will they even ever adopt more than one social network in the long run?
That is, in a few years, will you see most people on Facebook now also regularly checking and posting to something else, e.g. Twitter or Buzz?
I don't think so. Friendster died. Yahoo 360 died. Myspace is dying. I'm starting to really believe Twitter and Facebook and now Buzz are in a winner-take-all battle for mainstream social network attention.
Yes, they're all a little different, especially Twitter, which can have its special use cases. However, as time passes and the battle matures, I can only imagine that Facebook and Buzz will try to capture some of these use cases.
I don't think the solution is more personal aggregators. Those are for tech people.
Finally, I don't think the UI experience on any of them are particularly good. They succeed in spite of themselves.
