Interview w/ Shuzak.com Founder - Jawad Shuaib

Shuzak.com is a new niche social network for geeks. They describe themselves as:

Unlike MySpace and other social networks, that adhere to the traditional peer-to-peer models, Shuzak actively encourages community oriented interactions. To meet the demands placed by our members, Shuzak provides unique tools that let programmers, scientists and mathematicians communicate more efficiently.

I find the geek vertical to be an interesting niche. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of thriving “geek” communities on the internet oriented around programming languages, computer platforms, math, etc. From my observations, most of them are stuck in a “web 1.0″ stage operating under traditional forum and message board platforms. In addition, they are still very segmented with seperate locations for each topic.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Jawad Shuaib, founder of Shuzak, some questions about his new site and social networking as a whole. If you have any questions or comments for Jawad, you can email him directly at “biohazard at gmail.com”.

Q: What is the goal of Shuzak?

The wisdom of crowds is often wasted in social networks such as those for teens and musicians. We hope to change that. The combination of human-level intelligence with a computer’s inherent superiority in speed and accuracy will be formidable when applied to social networks that make use of it. Shuzak’s goal is to utilize these resources for the benefit of sharing knowledge…the educational potential of such a social network is undoubtedly huge. Nine months from now, I would like to see Shuzak as the primary platform for geeks to communicate and connect.

Q: How many members does Shuzak have? What type of growth are you seeing?

We’ve just recently decided to focus on marketing Shuzak since the key developments have been completed. At this stage, there are over 1900 members on Shuzak; it is anticipated that this number will likely jump in the following two months. Shuzak should reach its tipping point around the 15, 000 mark.

Q: What are your growth strategies for Shuzak?

The lesson we have learned from MySpace is that the key factor impacting a social network’s success is content. User generated content is king. As a result, our growth strategy requires that we reach out to our target market for potential users who in turn would generate content. It is a painstaking process that will require us to individually seek out newsletters, blogs, and other influential mediums to spread the word. Once Shuzak reaches a critical mass, the “user-generated marketing” (aka word of mouth) will kick in and relieve the pressure off us.

Equally as important as content is a business strategy. A business is not a business if it is not generating money. There are too many startups out there without a business plan, and we hope not to be another fish in that barrel. Shuzak’s business plan 2.0 is to monetarily compensate the crowd for its wisdom. Users are the heart and soul of any social network; it is only fair that they get out of the site what they put in. While Shuzak has not yet implemented this, we are definitely moving towards this direction. In Web 2.0, the user is the programmer; so it is likely that the future social networks will democratize revenue sharing models. In the past people contributed content because they found it enjoyable. But as we transition into year 2007, users have increased expectancy. The user is beginning to demand compensations. Not surprisingly startups, such as Revver, MetaCafe and PayPerPost, that have introduced revenue sharing models have achieved instant success.

Q: What is attractive about the geek vertical? Why do you think it will be successful?

From a business perspective, the geek vertical is attractive because we are among the first to tap into it. Geeks hacked up social networks for teens, musicians, students, parents, dead people, etc, but surprisingly enough, not one for themselves. While Digg, Reddit and Delicious do a great job at social bookmarking, they are not particularly good places for meeting like minded people for networking purposes.

Geeks have an ardent desire to connect and collaborate on issues they feel are important. Linux, PHP, Apache, and the open source movement are all examples of the wonderful creations collaboration made possible. The reason I believe Shuzak will be successful is because there is a definite need for a sort of ‘Geek Cafe’. After all, where else could a person go to discuss Thurston’s geometrization conjecture?

Q: What type of future features can we expect to see?

The acceleration of computation has transformed everything from social and economic relations to political institutions. A social network can harness the combined computation of the average Joe and create a rudimentary form of artificial intelligence. Amazon has already accomplished it. Today, we depend on Amazon bots to tell us what we “will” like. This is a major paradigm shift from less than a decade ago when we bought books solely based on recommendations from humans rather than computers. Everything a user does on a social network says a little bit about them. What happens if all those bits get put into one big trove of data about the user and their tastes? Advertiser’s heaven.

“Self-organization” and “Ability to rewire” are qualities we attribute to AI, but are currently only possible with social software. Instead of repeatedly searching for interesting topics and communities on Shuzak, the system could make suggestions based on your profile and past activity - It works great for dating sites, and it will work great for Shuzak.
Collaborative intelligence is increasingly becoming the trend in web applications. The benefits extend to advertisers as well as the users. We are looking forward to implementing features involving collaborative filtering as the overall activity on Shuzak grows to a certain critical level.

Q: How big do you think a niche social network like Shuzak could potentially grow?

To be honest, I have no idea. The member count could potentially scale to millions, but that is pure speculation. The great thing about niche social networks is that no niche is small enough. For instance, a social network for Persian cat owners would likely be looking at a market the size of many hundred thousand users.

Q: What do you think the major challenges to niche social networks?

Marketing is the greatest challenge all niche social networks must face. It is not enough to develop a great product anymore. The user really does not care whether your site has slick CSS styled rounded corners or simple square boxes. Users care about content but it is a challenge to generate that in an economy where users have the attention span of an Orangutan. My suggestion to fellow developers is to leave the curly braces occasionally to embrace the world of marketing: Your startup’s survival depends on it.

Q: Do you think MySpace will remain king of the social networking hill? Or will we see a new comer?

There may never be a social network as large as MySpace ever again. So there is a good chance no newcomer can take MySpace’s crown, except, of course, Shuzak MySpace has crossed the chasm; it is now an established company with a fairly established source of revenue. I anticipate that MySpace will continue to grow but as with every other large company, it will lose focus. As they lose focus, they will leave the ground for other niches. MySpace widgets and niche social networks aiming towards a specific MySpace demographics are already beginning to pick up pace.

The only thing that can destroy MySpace now is MySpace itself.

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Social Media, Online Community, Geeks, Niche Social Networking, Shuzak, Shuzak.com, Interview, Jawad Shuaib, Brian Balfour[/tags]