Sunday, January 04, 2004

Upcoming event: Ryze Boston Business Networking Mixer at Caveau. Ryze's business networking events are launching in a bunch of new cities this year including Boston. I'm organizing the Ryze... [Sooz] 7:20:30 PM

"... I can imagine a system layered on top of this that said "if you like talkint to this person (being in this group), maybe you'd like talking to these people as well."  -- Julian Bond What a great idea - not sure how it'll work.  So far on LinkedIn and Ryze, you can see degree of connection (e.g. FOAF) and that can lead me to think, gosh, I know someone that I like, and so I'll like their friends.  In fact I have not always found this to be true.  Sometimes I like their friends, sometimes I find that they are USEFUL friends (e.g. business contacts), but sometimes, I just don't understand why someone whose company I truly enjoy is hanging out with people that I find unbearable... So, something that relies on more detailed (self-reported as in Ryze or Friendster or LinkedIn) info could be helpful.  Recently I tried to look through a set of people on Friendster who listed music they listen to.  Geez I am OLD!  But now I have about 10 people I don't know that have ID'd a bunch of bands I don't know.  So by listening a bit, I can get a feel for people who respond to music like I do (at least on a couple dimensions). I have almost zero interest in finding people who respond to political issues as I do.  Probably because I don't always want to here reinforcing information, but instead want to hear and evaluate very different ideas when presented.  So then you want some kind of debate formula.  Or some kind of bridging activity. Finally, the concern with this automatic Amazon-like suggestion process is that it will have a power law effect.  A handful of people will end up as archetypal connectors along some interesting dimension. 70's music, Cyberpunk, Dean bloggers, Re-elect Bush Republicans, Trading-Spaces TV lovers, etc.  Now they may have interesting things to say along these dimensions, and they may be prolific.  But are they really the multidimensional people I want to spend time with.  Are they the one dimensional people I want to spend time with...  Just don't know. 6:56:50 PM

Automatic generation of metadata may be more accurate, but it might also reveal things that you don't want to have revealed.  What is the Plancks's Constant of social networks. Fascinating corrolary - according to M-theory (Witten's version of Membrane, or string theory), there are seven additional dimensions that are curled up within the Planck's distance and thus not measurable to us in perceivable spacetime.  But nevertheless, these other dimensions are real and necessary for things to behave as they appear to in empirical reality. So... in Social Network space, there are hidden dimensions that are implicit in the fabric of reality.  But they are hidden - and cannot be revealed to an external observer.  Or, perhaps, when they are - the enchantment is broken (to borrow from an earlier theme), and the relationship is irrevocably changed. ======================================= The Heisenberg uncertainty of social networks. One of my New Year's resolutions is to open up this weblog to a wider audience. So on first mention of something obscurely technical, I'll try to define it. Today's obscurely technical topic: FOAF. ... [Jon's Radio] 6:42:23 PM

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