We all know when we have driven into a rundown part of town – we see broken down homes, cars parked on blocks, overcrowding, graffiti – general chaos and disrepair. But what does being “ghetto” look like in that other domain – the Internet? Is it animated gifs, link farms, or bad design? Or does it have nothing to do with looks?

The visual is something we heavily depend on as a quality indicator when it comes to the web, but I think there’s another indicator that should be considered – popularity – and it comes before the looks ever go bad. You’re probably scratching your heads and thinking, “Isn’t popularity a good thing?” The answer is yes…. and no. Being popular means you’re admired by many people; many people who want buy in to your tribe, and many people that can lead to overcrowding if not managed right. The ultimate determining factor in whether popularity gives us the fatal slip or is the vital beat is the Brand. A strong brand can breed and thrive on a large loyal crowd. But a weak brand can quickly suffer the mutiny of the masses. Let’s take a look at the how popularity manifests in the realm of online social networks.

When MySpace was launched, it was set on the warpath for popularity. It was open, free, no rules, striving to be all things to all people – and it worked (past tense). MySpace became hands down the leading social network site. But its popularity came with a price, because they contracted featuritis. What their users wanted, they got. MySpace became cluttered, littered with poor design, and a breeding ground for viruses, crashes, and other web fatalities. MySpace became a virtual ghetto.

Enter Facebook. Pristine with its clean design and elegant interface – a shining suburbia had arrived in the world of Social Networking. But Facebook played with different rules – it was exclusive. You had to have a legitimate college email address to join, meaning no outsiders. This gated approach allowed Facebook to control the quality of the site, thus increasing its value. But Opportunity saw Value, and pounded at the gates, enticing Facebook with promises to monetize the platform. Finally, the gates were pried open, and in flooded the masses. Facebook became blinded by the dollar signs and the increasing multipliers and lost its tight control of their Brand, the origin of their Value. Nervously, they roll out new tricks and features in an attempt to keep users loyal. And they’re nearly succeeding because it still “looks good,” but not matter how you cut it, it’s still the same disease – featuritis. Facebook is doomed to ghetto-dom.

And then comes Twitter. Like its predecessors, its success is pinned on a large membership. But unlike them, Twitter has been avoiding featuritis, by being open to integration with other apps, without the need to stick these apps on top of their own interface. A slight but powerful difference because it has allowed Twitter to preserve its focus on “Internet SMS.” But as Twitter rockets forth with endorsers like Oprah and Ashton – it exposes itself to contracting the fate of MySpace and Facebook. The only thing that can keep it immune is a strong brand. Twitter needs to maintain its focus on what it’s good at, and what makes it different from all those other social media options. By resisting the urge to be all things to all people, it will retain its value. With this strong brand in hand, its continued popularity climb can actually be a good thing because it opens the platform to friction. Friction leads to improvement, as Kristian detailed in his recent post The Case for Friction. And friction leads to profitability as Seth Godin muses on in his recent post, Friction Saves the Medium.

If MySpace and Facebook are truly ghettos, will they face re-gentrification? With seemingly endless space in the virtual domain, is there even need to renovate these sites? Stay tuned for that answer in an upcoming post, Web Sprawl (II).