Reading for Oct. 29th

At first glance of the chapter on Significance, it doesn’t seem to make sense that exclusion would bring people together on a social media sites, even more so than inclusion. However, it makes complete sense with the example of the Obama campaign. Their technique of releasing information only to those who signed up as members of the online community was genius because that is exactly what draws people in; people will want to feel significant, so they will join the site in order to receive those presidential updates.

 It also makes sense that websites with exclusivity grow faster than those that allow anyone to join. The most popular social media sites, such as Facebook and Pinterest, started out with certain requirements that had to be met before joining. With Facebook, one had to be attending a college or university, so initially Facebook was a site that excluded anyone who was not in either institution. It grew quickly because college students felt significant in having their own form of social media that allowed communication amongst their peers. However, Facebook has grown tremendously to where anyone can join; you no longer have to be in a college or university. Facebook remains so popular all because of how it started out. Even though almost anyone can now join, the site still contains some exclusivity with the different groups and pages that are available to users. People can join and “like” pages, and after doing so, they will receive information and updates about those different organizations that no one else would have access to unless they were part of the group as well.

Pinterest also used a similar technique when it first launched. The site used to be invitation-only, but has recently granted access to anyone who wishes to join. Having to receive an invitation before joining is what made users feel significant to the community because they were specifically chosen to join. This allowed Pinterest to grow quickly because any member could invite anyone to join, so the word got out pretty fast, and users were tempted to join because of the presence of exclusivity.

All of the components of RIBS are crucial in maintaining a successful, long-living, and continuously growing social media site, but significance is one of the most important in my opinion. If users do not feel that they are important to the online community and are granted access to exclusive information, then they will not be persuaded to join the sites; a lack of exclusivity is one of the main reasons why most sites, such as Friendster, do not last.