Its probably a moot point to suggest that social networking sites are the rage these days. Thanks to the success of facebook, twitter, myspace and orkut, most of the sites now have a strong social component to them. So is the social networking space overcrowded? Maybe, but dont let that discourage you. As we pointed out in a previous blog post there's still a lot of scope here. So what makes a social networking site successful ? What are the key components and features that a social networking site should have. We at qed42 are web dwellers and continuously trying to deconstruct the web and we have the answer for you. The essential elements which you should keep in mind while building a social networking site.
1. A navigation menu which lets the user access all the elements of the site of which he is a part of.
2. Layouts should be consistent. Header and footer should take no more than 30% of your real estate, if possible may be even less. User should be able to see the content in any resolution. If its not so you may end up in a situation that if the user is at a low resolution, the header occupies 50% of the page and he may need to scroll multiple times.
3. Logo should be the identity of your site and it must be clickable!
These are some of the few things which we believe are the ingredients of a successful social networking site. Did we miss out on anything? Let us know in comments or contact us.