UX for Business

Social Networks and Communities

Users Are the Product

You might have heard the phrase, “If you’re not paying for a product, the product is you.” That phrase is often applied to social media, where users are getting everything for free and advertisers are paying to be seen on the same platform. Our attention is the product, from a business perspective.

While this is true, it is a cynical view of social networks as a platform we can design. We often forget that a social platform must be fun in itself before there is anything to sell to advertisers. The product we sell is not the product that users use. So, what is the product that users use?

That’s an interesting question, actually. If there are no users on a social network, what is its value?

In fact, the value for users is also other users! That isn’t just true because of money; it is true because of what a social network is.

Human Connection as a Feature

It is easy to think a feature is something we see or click in an interface. But that’s not quite right. A feature is just a method of getting something to happen. The button itself is not the feature. The feature is what the button does when you click it. Right?

That’s worth meditating on.

An economist might call a social network a coordination mechanism. All the buttons ...