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"Jonathan Saragossi is the founder of\u00A0IM Creator, a free website builder, and\u00A0AppSite,\u00A0a tool for promoting mobile applications.\u00A0Jonathan\u00A0is also\u00A0a UX and marketing consultant for major startups\u00A0including Any.Do and Playscape.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s time to move on. The feeling is becoming more and more significant with each passing day and it just keeps spreading.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s just not it any more... we want something new, exciting, which can take us places we\u2019ve never been. We want to be surprised again. We want a new, better social network.\r\n\r\nFacebook may say its user base is growing, but original members from the last decade appear to be leaving in droves. As more niche networking services and platforms enter the space, people are finding that not any one company is serving all of their networking needs. Our tastes and channels are becoming fragmented, and users are pushing back on accepted norms in the social media space.\r\n\r\nThis is inevitable. It's a natural life cycle for any product; unless it somehow becomes a living organism with its own reproductive system and evolution, one will eventually wither and die. Facebook cannot evade this process \u2013 it regenerates with nuances, but is not reinventing itself.\r\n\r\nFor inventions, it usually looks like this:\r\n\r\n\r\nEarly adopters as shown in the Rogers' bell curve\r\nThis curve is missing something important - the two-way migration that happens over time. When the late majority joins in, the innovators and early adopters are already feeling uncomfortable.\r\n\r\nFacebook today doesn\u2019t resemble a thriving, living metropolis - it\u2019s more of a friendly neighborhood bar. For that reason, FB will face its cruel destiny of simply fading away. Living in the same city as your parents is forgiven and acceptable; there is enough diversity and distance between everyone. But finding yourself sitting in the same bar as your mom and dad \u2013 that\u2019s horrifying. When your father posts pictures of sunsets and breakfast on his wall you know it\u2019s over. \r\n\r\nThe conclusion is undeniable; a new social network is needed. These are the things that will make it awesome and sustainable:\u00A0\r\nThe multiple expressive me\r\nI\u2019m a business man and a family man. I love collecting chairs and getting drunk on the weekends. I want to introduce all of these aspects to my network. I\u2019m not the boring and stiff \u2018LinkedIn Jonathan,\u2019 nor am I the friendly smiley social creature presented on Facebook, or the Tumblr pervert, or the obsessive Pinterest collector for that matter. I am all of these things wrapped in one.\r\n\r\nThis combined display has a real advantage, even for any one of the separate verticals: It would be easier for me to go into business with someone when I can see their family and hobbies. I\u2019ll feel closer knowing we have some common ground. It will also make dating, keeping in touch with family, and finding new friends easier. Combining your identities, creates a synergy and depth to your online persona.\r\n\r\nPrivacy issues? Not really. If you\u2019ve done it in public \u2013 it\u2019s public. Thinking it will remain a secret is na\u00EFve. You want a completely alternative identity? Open a second profile. Unlike Facebook, it\u2019s not forbidden, but recommended in the new social network of the future.\u00A0\r\nMobile first\r\nThis social network is sure to start as an app, and its core audience will be on mobile. The market penetration potential is huge and can be attained faster than any other technology in history.\r\n\r\nThe representation of this social network on desktop computers will be marginal, and only as a convenience for those who feel uncomfortable without it.\r\nLocalized recommendations\r\nFacebook lets me down every time I crave something new. It always offers me to return to my families\u2019 and close friends\u2019 warm embrace.\u00A0 I want to break these confines.\r\n\r\nIts shortcomings are fully revealed when arriving to a new location where you have no acquaintances. Suddenly, Facebook is silent, keeping you informed on irrelevant pictures from home, making you feel guilty and homesick like your meddling aunt.\r\n\r\nIt happens to me every time I arrive in Tokyo \u2013 I get left out. Facebook knows what\u2019s happening right around me, but it won\u2019t tell me. The next social network should let you break through your closed social cliques and instead try to diversify and expand them.\r\n\r\nYou\u2019ve landed in a strange city? This is the action happening around you right now. Everybody \u2013 all foreign and wonderful \u2013 is going to a concert tomorrow. You might like this because you've indicated a love of music. In the concert itself \u2013 it\u2019s the girl dancing next to you. Maybe send her an animated GIF to break the ice?\r\n\r\nHumans as curious animals are naturally interested in the unknown. The new social network should help us expand our horizons; it will be much more adventurous than the warm cozy environment Facebook has to offer.\r\nOwnership\r\nThe profile, content, visitor stream are all mine. Our friends aren't meant to be crammed into a rented room in a huge blue-gray hotel. We should own our apartment, with the ability to decorate, organize, and expand as we please. I don\u2019t want to be facebook.com/Jonathan. This immediate association to a specific network limits me and portrays me as a specific character that I\u2019m not interested in being.\r\n\r\nThe next social network should be decentralized and each person will be the owner of his or her own content. It will create independence and a much stronger emotional connection. This ownership lets us invest more time, energy and money because we will know it's so specific to just us.\r\n\r\nTumblr does this well. It\u2019s easy to take a profile or blog, connect it to a domain, make it independent and still enjoy the network\u2019s social tools that provide the option to discuss content and speedy, unmediated distribution.\u00A0\r\nIncome and commerce\r\nOwnership over content will open new economic possibilities. Once the real estate is yours, the profits originating from it are naturally yours as well.\r\n\r\nThe situation today is quite different. Posting a very popular status on Facebook, with hundreds of likes, comments and followers will not provide any profit to the writer of the post. Your friends, who came because of your content, are clicking on commercials and the entire profit goes back to Facebook. It\u2019s unfair considering you\u2019re the one that drew the crowd.\r\n\r\nWhat you get instead is akin to a useless \u201Creward\u201D in the form of likes, \u00A0while Facebook counts its profits. We sell our content for peanuts and I believe, like many, that is about to come to an end.\r\n\r\nThe new social network should share profits with users who create the content. In fact, it shall only take a small commission, and offer the option to convert the commission to a fixed monthly sum in exchange for the technology services it provides.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTaking it further, the new social network should provide simple solutions for product sales, real or virtual. Like a full, closed marketing circuit, it will take us from reference to purchase and will serve huge, all inclusive mega stores just as it serves personal micro stores.\r\n\r\nWe invest so much time in our current social networks propagating word of mouth brand value and referrals , there\u2019s no reason why the next social network can\u2019t include this process and allow users to turn their invested time into an alternative income source.\r\n\r\nThe business models it will use will be more sophisticated and will include an affiliation model. If your like eventually lead to a purchase, you should get your share of the earnings (10 percent for a referred paying customer is a reasonable, although low, commission in the affiliation industry these days). If your recommendation results in the purchase of a Toyota there is a lot of money to be earned.\u00A0\r\nTool-set for hackers\r\nMark Zuckerberg is known for the hacking culture he confers on his employees - rebelling against authority, building new things, and finding tricks or bypasses. The problem with Facebook is that this culture remains only inside the company and development teams.\r\n\r\nThe users themselves, meaning all of us, are given no room for \u201Chacks.\u201D If you have a Facebook profile and you revolt or upload unusual content, there's a chance your account will get deleted. The ability to change and develop your Facebook profile, in ways that are yet to be developed, does not exist.\r\n\r\nA natural evolution and development cannot exist with such narrow options. There is no room for new iterations and being cutting-edge. It does not allow for the necessary diversity needed to create a true city. This is the problem with Facebook.\r\nThe future\r\nNo doubt my vision is ambitious, but it\u2019s not far-fetched. There can, and will, be a social platform that embodies the attributes outlined here and we\u2019ll all wonder why it didn\u2019t come sooner. We\u2019re already seeing mobile-first, hacker-friendly, ownership-oriented platforms emerge and succeeding.\r\n\r\nThe next social network will provide tools with which it will be possible to create endless variations - variations the original creators of the network could have never dreamt of. That\u2019s where the magic is going to happen; where the masses will create perpetual diversity and disruption, effectively avoiding Facebook\u2019s fate. After all, how can you disrupt a network that is disrupting itself?\r\n\r\nWhat does your dream social network look like?\r\n\r\nImage credit:\u00A0higyou/Shutterstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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