Sticky?

The question is why social networking sites are "sticky," encouraging people to spend lots of time on them. I have to say that I've been on Facebook in my "real online life" (well, one of them) for close to a year and although I've fooled around with it some, I haven't spent much time on it. In other words, it hasn't been "sticky" for me.

However, some of my offline friends (longtime friends dating back to my college years a long time ago) have started migrating to Facebook in the last couple of months. I think I might've been the first one on Facebook, then another one joined and now she's been successful in getting several more to join. And, guess what? Now I'm spending more time on Facebook (other than homework for this class). I'm not really interested in the goofy little games and such, but now that people I know and care about (and some of whom never check their e-mail^) are pitching their tents there, I'm more interested. So, for me, I'd have to say what makes a site like Facebook sticky is the opportunity to be in touch with my friends (which dovetails nicely with the article by boyd and Ellison).

Although it isn't a social networking site in the sense of Facebook or MySpace, Flickr is the site I find stickiest. Number one, it's networking around something other than myself (namely photos). I'm a shy person, and it's always been easier for me to bond around shared interests rather than throwing the spotlight on myself.

Number two, more of my offline friends found Flickr sooner; some have very active lives on Flickr and absolutely no interest in Facebook.

Number three, it's a less-threatening way of meeting new people. I also prefer Flickr's language of "contacts" over Facebook's "friends;" to me, the title "friend" is not something I hand out lightly. Another thing I prefer about Flickr is that relationships can be asymmetrical; friending on Facebook seems like such a commitment.

Number four, there are oodles of things to do on Flickr in terms of discovering what pools to add your photos to (ok, so my spice rack isn't alphabetized, but I used to reshelve my books for fun) ("Hey, let's do them in chronological order this time!"^); games you can play (I'm not big on Facebook's games but Flickr's Free Association pool is loads of fun); refining your tagging protocols (yes, I really do this!); geotagging your photos; seeing what your contacts have posted; looking for photos of specific subjects...the list goes on. I don't know if Flickr counts as a social networking site for the purposes of this week's classwork, but to me it's way stickier than Facebook.

If my friends continue to gravitate to Facebook, I'll probably find it to be sticky for the opportunity to stay in touch with them. But Flickr offers me the opportunity to stay in touch with my photographically-inclined friends and also offers me lots of geeky little toys and activities into the bargain. What's not to love? :)