See my response (rebutt) below...
Does social software matter?
- Posted by David Weinberger at 10:05 AM
There’s some back-and-forth at StartUpSkills.com on whether social software will amount to much. Jeremy Zawodny says: “Start thinking about how adding a social networking component to existing systems could improve them.” StartUpSkills replies that people don’t have enough incentive to give away the social network that is their competitive advantage.
Personally, I agree with Jeremy that networks such as LinkedIn will only survive if an external application figures out a use for them. Without that, we’re left with people you don’t know asking you to hook them up with other people you don’t know.
Om Malik doesn’t understand why people would share their Rolodexes with commercial entities. My problem, though, isn’t that my Rolodex is too valuable to share (hah!), but that social software of the Friendster/LinkedIn sort necessarily get social relationships wrong:
First, social relationships aren’t transitive: If A knows B who knows C who knows D, there is no sense in which A knows C much less D. We do, however, have a social convention for first degree relationships: A is entitled to ask B for an introduction to C. But not to D.
Second, social relationships aren’t formal (in the logical sense). In logic, if A > B and B > C, then A > C. But — and here’s why people generally don’t name their kids A, B and C — A doesn’t have to ask B’s permission to be greater than C, and C doesn’t get annoyed at B for pestering her with requests from strangers to be greater than C. Every time I introduce someone to my pal C, I am altering my relationship with C just a little bit.
Third, real social networks are always implicit. The ones constructed explicitly are always — yes, always — infected with a heavy dose of social bullshit. It’s like thinking that the invitiation list for your wedding actually reflects your circle of friends and relatives. No, you had to invite Barry-the-Boozer because he’s your cousin and you couldn’t invite Marsha because then you’d have to invite her husband Larry-the-Ass-Grabber and her daughter Erin-the-Snot-Flinger. Explicitly constructed social networks not only lack the differentiation that makes relationships real, they are falsehoods built to reinforce spectral relationships and to avoid ending shaky ones.
There may be uses for the links created within these artificial social networks, for while the relationships aren’t transitive, some of their properties — interests, tastes, prejudices — are: if A and C both know B, they are statistically more likely to share B’s tastes in music than two randomly selected people are. That may turn out to be useful to some other application.
But if you want to get at the real social networks, you’re going to have to figure them out from the paths that actual feet have worn into the actual social carpet.
(See Ross on FOAF and Plink and Clay on Om…) [Many-to-Many]
Oh boy, finally an intellectual rap I can sink my teeth into! And from somebody no less esteemed as the good Doctor Weinberger.
You see, I tried to invite David into Friendster early on and was refuted by him, scoffing at the notion of implicit social nets - so I've had 9 months to ponder this issue.
First off - I totally agree with him that explicit social nets are infected with bullshit. I myself proved that by quickly gaining 444 so-called friends on Tribe.net. I've drawn the line at 444 (since it's such a nice number) and as I add friends, I take away accordingly - to keep the number at 444. How's that for arbitrary? :-)
I know this pisses off danah boyd, but that's life. It all seems like bullshit to me, so what's wrong with gaming the system? (This is from a person (ME!) who met his wife on Match.com BTW :-) Lisa (my wife) and I had totally figured out Match - as we both spent over three years trolling around, looking for each other.
Only until we more or less gave up and just saw it for what it was - did we suceed.
But all these math formulas somehow trying to prove that I don't care or don't have the right to ask D for a date or sell him/her something is bullshit too! Sometimes I think that the good Doctor is just an old crumudgeon and that 'his generation' just don't get it.
If you wanna have fun on-line and you wanna use technology - then why not ask out D for a date? Or try to do business with her? As opposed to what? Sitting at home watching bloggers blog the Mars landing?
What's more fun - reading RSS feeds or flirting with strangers? If an explicit social net can give me the excuse of meeting hotties from Knoxville, TN or Banglore (for that matter) then what's wrong with that?
I for one - COMPLETEY UTTERLY - believe that by adding social networking, to say 'a gaming portal' or a content play (like Tony Perkins 'AlwaysOn Network') - we're about to push the envelope even further - developing spontaneously forming groups of like minded people. And anything that helps people hang out together, in a decentralized world, is a good thing. How else are we supposed to form the World of Ends?
But another thing I TOTALLY EMPHATICALLY AGREE with the good doctor (and Om Malik), is that there's no value - to ME - in giving some system all my personal poop, friends, info, etc. - unless I can use it elsewhere. This is what I tried to explain to Reid Hoffman when I first found out about LinkedIn. This is also why - every chance I get I ask Reid - in public - if he plans on 'opening up' LinkedIn - to allow, say a FOAF file to move these social nets - elsewhere.
It's up to entrprenuers to figure this challenge out.
How can we, on one hand, develop IP, assets and business models which can make money, while on the other hand - not lock people into yet another lock-in strategy? That's what Jonathan Abrams, John Doerr and Friendster is all about. Lock in.
I just hope that Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus are smarter than that.
:-)
That's why our PeopleAggregator is being developed - to provide away for folks to move their social networks around. And that's why FOAF is right on! It's the perfect format for that reason - it's not controlled by anyone, it's open and it's already in use (in products like Ecademy and Typepad.)
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