The second panel I attended at the MaRS experiencetech event was the social networking panel. It was comprised of Jay Goldman (Radiant Core), Jeremy Wright (B5 Media), & Tomi Poutanen (Former Head of Yahoo Social Search.) The panel was moderated by tech expert Jesse Hirsh.

Here are some of the highlights.

On the essence of social networking

“Social Networks are inherently broken. While it’s great that we can pivot that data around people, networks should be centered around our interests vs. people we know.” Jeremy Wright

On Client fatigue regarding social networks

“Fatigue is only at the bleeding edge. The mainstream hasn’t even adopted these technologies yet we are at least six months to a year a head of the trend.” Jay Goldman

On the future of social networks

“Facebook wants to be the operating system for social networking. They are trying to capture all of your online and offline relationships.” Tomi Poutanen
I loved the idea that social networks should be based around your interests. Although I guess you can argue that all networks are, even Facebook (the united desire to creep people you haven’t seen since high school.) I also think it’s a natural extension for Facebook to offer recommendations from people in your network. That was probably the intent of Beacon, although poor execution will make users wary of similar initiatives in the future.

I think Jay Goldman made a hugely important point of reminding those of us who live in this tech space to remember that we are not necessarily the norm. So while some of us might be ready to throw in the towel on Facebook or Twitter, most people are just starting to get used to the different ways these technologies can be applied to daily life.

I would have loved to see more focused panels at MaRS. Instead of huge umbrella topics I would have liked to narrow down on a particular issue and fleshed that out for an hour. Just my two cents. It was interesting overall, but I didn’t really glean anything new from it.