Shirish wrote a good market opportunity and vision statement for Livemocha but, where I've taken an interest, are in many of the social design philosophies underlying "web 2.0" applications.
1. A social network is a feature NOT a business. Unless there is a very well-defined "niche" being served, a Facebook-clone social network seems only doomed to fail and, even when a niche is identified, the gravity that the strong incumbents have, coupled with the low cost of entry and "open nature" of the Facebook API, it seems that any niche could quickly be addressed on existing networks.
Philosophically, we built a social network because it reinforces the value proposition rather than BEING the value proposition. Afterall, what's a more social activity than having conversations (regardless of language)?
2. Make it useful for me first. Josh Porter over at Bokardo says, "Personal Value Precedes Network Value" and I believe it. Livemocha provides very tangible value to beginner language learners by providing initial seed content in the form of self-study exercises. This is something that "competitive" services are lacking. This was a great move - we've seen a tonne of traction with our courses.
Ironically, we've received a bit of flack (being accused of trolling for users) because our registration page contains a language that we don't (yet) have courses for. Our competition, who simply offer language exchanges (ie chat tools + social network) don't have courses but have a similar drop down. It's interesting how offering courses changed the frame of reference.
3. Invert the participation pyramid. I first saw this pyramid in the Globe and Mail on my way to Vancouver, BC. I never cut anything out of the paper, but thought this research by Forrester summed up our (every site that relies on user generated content) problem nicely. Basically, it says that the majority of people on social networks just consume the content that the minority make (think wikipedia).
Lee LeFever over at CommonCraft had some great advice in his blog "Your Community is a Party Waiting to Happen":
Your party needs multiple ways to participate...Consider how small modes of participation can be a gateway to deeper contributions.Livemocha recognized early that users will have two forms of anxiety: 1. People have the social computing participation anxiety as described by Lee and Forrester, and 2. In the context of language learning, there's plenty of research to show that a learner's second language acquisition success is sometimes limited by the learner's embarrassment in speaking their new language.
To minimize this anxiety, we offered numerous ways for community participation. From least participation to most: rating submissions and tips, leaving submissions and tips in native language, completing asynchronous exercises in your new language, full-on conversations (aided), full on conversations (un-aided).
At our launch last week at DEMOFall, we had strong interest and people seemed to get past the "just another social network" that we feared they might get stuck on. Our growth has been steady - the first 1000 users came a lot faster than I expected :). Having done our research up front, applying some of these principles seems to have paid off.
