I think there might be more social networks than “social media experts”.

First there was Classmates, LiveJournal, Friendster, LinkedIn and MySpace. Then Facebook comes along with a site tailored for current university students. Then came demand for accommodating other groups like high school students, coworkers, and eventually everyone. Facebook succeeded (and created a mass exodus from MySpace) because it catered to a small market first, people that are keen on sharing information with everyone else like gossip, updates, etc. Those people were sick of the teenie-boppers with pink sparkly gif backgrounds on MySpace. So Facebook becomes ubiquitous. They build pretty good solutions for problems like sharing photos.

However, Facebook hasn’t done an amazing job connecting its service to a mobile environment, and that’s where Twitter thrived. Twitter essentially existed to fill the gap of posting what you’re up to on the go. Twitter solved the problem of friends and family calling you all the time asking, “What are you doing?” Since I started using Twitter a few years ago, I don’t have this problem anymore. I know what everyone’s up to and everyone knows what I’m up to.

Then Facebook copies the functionality. They created status updates and made it relatively easy to post on mobile devices. Now, everything is mobile. But the mobile social network landscape has exploded into a ton of apps that are essentially fads.

There are new social networks like Tumblr, Foursquare, Yelp, Instagram, Gowalla, Google+ and Path. Some are speciality based like Yelp is for rating places. Instagram is for photos. Foursquare and Gowalla are for sharing your location. Google+ and Path aim to be for everyone.

Google+ seemingly tried to be the next Facebook, but everyone on Facebook isn’t going to get up and leave like they did for MySpace. Why would they? Unlike MySpace, Facebook is always actively working on new features, controversial or not. They’re always advancing. You can’t just make a site on the web and expect everyone to go invest time in it. I started using Google+ as early as I could but I found no unique advantage to Facebook. In fact, I haven’t used Facebook for almost a year.

What does Facebook have to offer today that’s unique? For some people, it’s a connection with their loved ones: their extended family. It’s easier than email. It’s not easy however, to convince your family to use Twitter or another social network. Not everyone spends the amount of time connected to the Internet as some of us. Most of my extended family rarely checks their email or can’t remember their email password to begin with. It’s not easy to get someone started on “another thing.”

It seems like a few of these networks are innovating on the mobile platform. Facebook and Twitter try new UI ideas like pulling out a drawer or pull to refresh. Path has a radial menu. Instagram has a button in a tab bar. None of these are truly good design, they’re just gimmicks. Most geeks tend to be attracted to these shiny things.

I’m over Foursquare and Gowalla. I don’t use either much anymore. Find My Friends helps me answer the question, “Where is my friend now?” I don’t care who the mayor is of the local coffee shop. I try using Instagram here and there but I still think it relies so much on me posting it to Twitter so that the people I want to share with can see my photos. What’s the point of single-purpose social networks if you have to publish content from one onto another? For Instagram, they may have built an app-only social network, but not everyone (like my family) uses it enough for it to be useful on its own. Foursquare and Gowalla suffer the same problem. So often in my Twitter timeline I see people saying where they are with a link to either site.

Path realized that they couldn’t survive on their own and intended to be a companion to Facebook as opposed to the only thing you check. But you aren’t going to succeed by relying on a competitor. Path doesn’t offer anything unique compared to Facebook, where many people already invest lots of time. Right now, Path is a fad. Everyone’s excited about the shiny things. But I imagine it plays out similarly to Google+: everyone posts a lot early on, but ultimately no one uses it without also posting to Twitter.