Social Media Platform Fatigue- when a social media site suffers a drop in users or activity due to the users becoming increasingly annoyed or bored with the user experience.

No platform is perfect and certainly no platform is perfect for every user. Add to that users are not a static bunch. They are learning and changing the more they “use” software and the Web. Users also increasingly expect software and websites to improve dramatically on a regular basis. This is increasingly important for daily use sites. Sites like Facebook, Google, CNN, ESPN, Twitter etc. Sites that the same users visit day in and out. 

Most of the time improving a site doesn’t mean just adding more stuff to it. Just take a look at Facebook or MySpace to see what happens when you add functionality and content to a platform without really considering how it should be organized for the user. Both platforms are increasingly messy and hard to navigate.

Platform Fatigue is seen most acutely in social media sites. Consider that only 6 years ago Friendster was the dominant online social networking site and MySpace was just beginning to rise through the ranks. Friendster-MySpace-Facebook-Twitter all in 6 years!

Maybe the problem here wasn’t so much the inevitable spam and clutter but the platform itself. Maybe users just got tired of the platform?

The challenge is that social media sites start out doing one or two things really well but they usually give into the temptation of trying to be all things everyone. MySpace was where bands went to post their music, Facebook was for college students, etc, but now both those sites have lost their defined and even narrow vision in an attempt to attract more visitors and thereby revenue. MySpace is heading south and I predict Facebook could see a similar fate in 2010 if it doesn’t fix some usability issues. Facebook is becoming really hard to navigate.

Twitter is an interesting exception to the rule so far. It has mostly resisted the temptation to expand its offerings. It has made small incremental moves, recently “lists”, but nothing dramatic. The platform is really simple to use, you can only do about 4 things on Twitter but there applications are limitless. I wonder how long before the investors start to clamour for ways to suck revenue from Twitter? That push usually leads to a chaotic rush to add features that are revenue based in some way or another.

I’m sure some users get frustrated with the limitations of Twitter but I would think some users get frustrated with the limitations of Google as well. But consider this, Google users have very little platform fatigue. They use it multiple times a day. It doesn’t try to be all things to all people. There is really only one thing you can do on Google.com for the average user- find stuff via search. Sure Google has Gmail, Docs, Wave etc but most users are just doing one thing- search. Those other apps are great next steps in the relationship but they generally don’t clutter the search experience with these other offerings. They mostly act as stand alone platforms.

Other search engines tried to expand their search offerings in an attempt to monetize their user base only to drive those same users into the arms of Google. Yahoo clutters its home page with ads and links to all kinds of junk- is it a news site? Email? Search engine? Store? All of the above?  Sure! All Google cares about is the user, they know a sustainable revenue model only happens with happy users.

So my advice to Social Media sites- focus more on the user experience and less on new features. It may be frustrating at times for some users who are craving new features but the other road leads to a feature rich site that is increasingly difficult to use. I see Facebook heading this direction and the further it goes the less I find myself stopping by to check in on my friends. Too bad since it was a nice platform, once.