The Social Network Generation
Posted April 13th, 2007 by Andre
When I needed to study for the SAT, I bought a book. Not to say I used it, but I at least had the thing. Kids these days have another choice: B4Class.
Launched and promoted by 18 year old Sofia Loginova, this new website has gotten a lot of publicity around Boston, unfortunately, some of it, as reported in Boston.com, has not been so great.
It is billed as a social network whose goal is to “provide a fun and interactive online community that is user-friendly and allows members to freely and safely meet other great people.”
What makes this site different is the way they are targeting the teen market: offering “something nobody is offering … free online tutoring for your GMATS, LSAT and SAT’s.”
Young entrepreneurs have always been a part of the social web. MySpace, Facebook, and many other very popular sites have all been created by young people with big dreams. The problem has become that these days, everyone is trying to capture the magic that the two social networks mentioned above excelled at generating.
There are many sites flooding the social network space that have no real distinguishing features, quality layouts, or most importantly of all, user appeal. As these “out-of-the-box” social networks become cheaper and cheaper, social networks are becoming the “must-haves” of the web2.0 for everyone, right in line with blogs.
The problem is that just having one is not the important thing here. It’s execution, execution, execution. Having the platform is not enough, you need the content, the users, and of course, the plan to make it all work.
