"Not another social network?!"

Online social networks have been literally booming over the past couple of years, thriving on the content that they don't even have to create - why should they, when hundreds of millions (if not billions) of users, myself included, are doing it for them?

That's all fine and dandy, but it seems to me that something went wrong along the way, and the bubble's beginning to burst. There are so many out there now, that many people are now hunting down the best app which can do the best job at updating all of them at once. To put it simply, it's just too much to handle, at least for the average (non-geek) user.

Which more or less conveniently brings me to my next point: because of this clutter, many good up-and-coming social networks don't stand a chance.

Take Dopplr, for example. It has a very simple, yet particularly useful purpose: as Jimmy Wales put it, "You put in your travel schedule and link to your friends. It allows you to see where everyone is. I love it." I'm personally an avid user of Dopplr, and I'm making serious efforts to get my friends to join, simply because it's easy to use, very handy and arguably the best there is on its niche. Unfortunately, their usual response is "Not another social network, dude, I can hardly handle the ones I'm on as it is!"

But then again, typical social networking users don't check out TechMeme or follow The Crunchies. Hell, I don't even think they've ever googled their way into finding the best solution. They're not seeing the good stuff. They just go with it on a first-come, first-serve basis.

So I'm wondering whether the problem is, in fact, this never-ending stream of crappy alternatives to the good networks, this clutter... Or is the discouraging and brutal truth that they don't really care? If so, take that for a target consumer. [pic via]