“You’re a dying social network if Rupert Murdoch is interested in buying you,” joked Prash Sabharwal, during this more light-hearted installation of #cmgrchat. Despite cracks, chat participants take a [semi-]serious look at what constitutes a dying network and how to prepare communities for transition.

*****

Q1) What are the telltale signs of a “dying network” (think myspace)? Are there any “dying networks” right now you think?

ecmoor01 Less replies & longer spans in between logins.

damon_mone  Les exposure in the media/main stream

evanhamilton A “dying network” is one that people aren’t excited about congregating on. That said, things do cheat death frequently. 🙂

Rubeenthrdnetht One of the signs is no growth.. myspace stayed stagnant for way too long.

ATT_Jam Widespread complaints about features/functionality that aren’t acknowledged – great signifier that people are going to leave.

nick_provo  The signs of a dying network -are when those ‘hip’ kids move on to something else. Think when myspace-teens stopped using it.

susanna_hall Telltale sign for dying Facebook = Google + creating better systems.

jasongeorge80  They stop being responsive to the community, no longer innovating to meet the communities needs

annedreshfield I keep an eye on what college students are doing; odds are they’re closely following trends in technology!

JDEbberly There is lots of talk of Facebook dying – THAT in itself may be sign of the network dying

NicholasDragon For a network to succeed it must continually adapt to the needs and wants of users, which is where MySpace failed.

*****

Q2) Why would you choose to fully leave one network for another? (Be more specific than just “Privacy Settings”)

Jeanetteix I would leave a network if I felt it was getting stale – ie my friends are no longer sharing or there arent new features

LumiNatureza Depends on if my connections leave, whether it is family/friends/business.

IslandPrintGrp I honestly don’t think I’ve ever FULLY left a network. Profiles and previous engagements are still there…

Fisherish Social network is mean to be social, my 1st reason for leaving would be less participation by peers and friends

rachaelgk If it offered a true point of differentiation – something fantastically innovative I couldn’t get elsewhere.

evanhamilton I leave a network if it’s frustrating me immensely…via ads, broken functionality, privacy infringements, bad support.

ecmoor01 When my friends leave there is no reason to be there. No need to talk to myself!

annabassham I’d leave for another network if it offered better opps. to connect with ppl. and manage all my content in ONE place.

tmcantwell You will naturally migrate to the network that gives you the most validation – comments, interaction, recognition.

brightmatrix For me, it would have to be all about the features. But, I’ve not yet fully abandoned one SM network for another …

SweeneySays Sostalgia factor. I don’t use it, but I don’t delete it because it’s like a digital time capsule.

shesafitchick You know a network is dying/dead if you can’t even remember what your email address was when you created it

NicholasDragon Evidence of a dying network – sudden significant rate increases. I.e Netflix

*****

Q3) If 70% of your cmty left FB for Google+, would you advise your company to stay on FB for that 30%?

timthetechguy Of course! You need to be where your customers are! So if you market to emo kids, you should still be on myspace.

elanazak FB isn’t too great for businesses. If G+ was better, then yes, I’d say switch

PrashSabharwal It’d be funny if animals from farmville could migrate to new networks from deprecated ones.

PrashSabharwal: Take into consideration the value of that 30% traffic. They may be giving you 80% of your conversions.

yolunia @KellyLux Yes. Its the reason why SEO’s still take the time to optimize for Yahoo/Bing. You have to be accessible everywhere.

MelissaSno If the ROI of monitoring, etc that 30% was worth it – absolutely

duzins Would you turn down 30% of your community because it was a pain to message them in 2 places?

******

Q4) How can you effectively transition out of a dying platform?

theTsaritsa Transition by telling your followers where you’re going, posting a note on the old site, and hope they follow along

jennalanger Transition out of a dying platform? I still have my MySpace page just inc ase it was resurrected! 🙂

celivingston We do a one month ramp-down pointing to new space.

wayward_drui Be clear and vocal about where you are going, and hopefully transition your network with you!

damon_mone You’ll have to keep your hands in the platform until it dies

RWalkerAtSU Provide an alternative or risk losing customers/friends/networks permanently.

*****

You can catch #cmgrchat on Wednesdays 2-3pm EST. New chat topics are always being considered, so feel free to drop a comment below!