Social networking enters the dreaded Its Complicated stage

What do Bill Belichick defensive schemes, Tom Clancy novels, Google+and Facebook have in common? The answer is that all are so byzantinethat they leave many people scratching their heads to figure them out.

For NFL playbooks and spy novels, such intricacies are the norm.Social networking should not be that way. The trouble is the latter israpidly descending into a black hole of complexity that you now reallydo need one of those Missing Manuals to figure out the basics.

With all of the news coming out of Google and Facebook this week, ourrelationship with social networking sites has entered the dreadedits complicated stage. Thats a shame, since its simplicity thatattracted us in the first place.

Googles minimalist interface and ability to execute a searchexceptionally well is what catapulted it to the forefront. It made usquickly see just how bloated other services like Yahoo had become asthey aimed to become portals. Now Google is a complex portal.

Facebook, much the same, rose to prominence because it was just sosimple compared to others. Back in 2007, author/pundit Jeff Jarvispraised its elegant organization as the nucleus of CEO MarkZuckerbergs genius. Now, however, the interface has grown a lot morecomplicated. It too is a portal.

Somewhere along the way both Google and Facebook lost sight of keeping things simple

Today Google+ and Facebook are locked in a features arms race thelikes of which we havent seen since Microsoft Word defeatedWordperfect back in the early 1990s. Both are rapidly adding buttonsand gizmos to keep a fickle public in their grasp.

On the one hand, some might see this as a smart move. History hasshown us that no single community or social platform has had stayingpower more than a few ye! ars. Use rs get bored, new platforms emerge andtheres churn. Features encourage tighter connections, more sharingand increase the emotional switching costs. It can keep users intheir fold even the disgruntled.

But theres a balance, and both are starting to go too far

The flip side is that, in social networking, you can go too fast.People already are time starved. Adding new features that causeconsumers to have to invest precious mental processing cycles tofigure them out may have the opposite effect to whats intended.

I dont fault the platforms for innovating. They have to.However, they should consider going a little slower and phase in newadvances over time, rather than all at once. Be evolutionary, notrevolutionary. Make some features mandatory, but allow users todiscover the hidden delights.

This is even more pivotal in social networking because of privacy.Already a lot of people fear that Google and Facebook know too muchabout them. As feature creep becomes the norm, both platforms areencouraging more sharing, not less. The problem is this requires thatthey add tighter privacy and sharing settings. While welcome, thisonly creates even more complexity and a vicious cycle ensues.Worse, theyre bucking the trend.

As technology pervades every aspectof our lives, less is the new more

In computing, Apple has remained true to this approach its entire history. Microsoft meanwhile, with its bold new Metro interfaces, isalso aiming to make things simpler for users (Microsoft is an Edelman client).In social networking, Tumblr and Instagram are making inroads becausethey always keep things simple and elegant. They do a one or twothings really well and they dont rush.The same is true for mobile platforms like 37 Signals and Instapaper,both of which have eschewed bloat.

Yet they all innovate.

Google and Facebook can learn a few things from these other companies.They should, of course, innovate. However, they must do so carefully.Because if they go too fast, it moves the! m away f rom what made themattractive in the first place. And thats elegance.As they add new features, consumers now must invest more mentalenergy, not less. This is especially the case when it comes toprivacy. It violates what usability expert Jakob Nielsens cardinalrule Dont make me think.

Such bloat over time may have precisely the opposite intended result.It could drive users away rather than keep them closer. And it createsa distinct avenue for disruptive, elegant competitors to come alongjust as Google and Facebook did in their salad days to gain share.

Steve Rubel is EVP/Global Strategy for Edelman the worlds largest public relations firm. He tweets @steverubel.

Image courtesy ofFlickr userjasminejennyjen.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.