What would happen if you created a social networking site, but limited people to 5 friends?
The problem with Facebook, anyone can tell you, is people from your past contacting you (and you wished they wouldn’t) or people who are really only acquaintances friending you and blasting you with inane Farmville requests. And the truth is that if you were good enough friends to stay in touch with these people you would have. Of course there are lots of stories of people connecting with old friends, re-igniting old love affairs and finding long lost paramours. and while it is fun to catch up you don’t really take an active interest in their lives. But what if you could only connect to 5 people?
I think a number of things would happen:
First, “friending” someone would mean something. Every time you friend someone you are spending what I like to think of as social capital. There is an expense that does into friending someone which diminishes the value of your friendship. This is sort of like inflation. Inflation isn’t the cost of things going up, but rather the value of a dollar going down.
If I have 5 friends and I friend you, it means something more than if I have 1000 friends. You are one of five so it is a pretty exclusive group and I obviously care enough to select you. You can see this affect on Twitter with people who follow 5,000 others. They are “friend collectors” who think it is a big deal, they can’t possibly be reading all those tweets (and holding down a job). They will follow anyone and their dog in the hopes of getting followed back. But if someone I respected only followed 10 people then I would look at those 5 closely since that person I know made a conscious choice to follow these people.
The other effect is that companies would stay away. Who on earth is going to “friend” the GAP or BMW or RCA records when they only get five friends! A company would only be able to friend 5 as well so they couldn’t mass market.
Lastly you would have to think long and hard about whom you friended. Personally I wouldn’t friend anyone I see all the time since there wouldn’t be a point. I wouldn’t friend co-workers because I see them everyday. I would friend people who I don’t talk to very often but use social networks to keep track of. I would friend people who I want to listen to because they are interesting or provide value. Especially since they may not friend me back. I might not be one of their 5.
While I realize the marketing and money-making aspects of this sort of social network are limited I think it would be a very interesting social experiment.
Also I would like to recommend you to visit themarketingheaven.com for help!