One of the most exciting things about today's internet is the potential for next-generation social networking platforms to connect people who might want to be connected algorithmically.
One of the frustrating things about the so-called next-generation social networking platforms is that they seem, without exception, to ignore basic social networking theory, and miss the point entirely.
Case in point: MySpace. The 800 lb. gorilla of social networking. First of all, its search function is useless. Anyone who has tried to use it can verify that. If computers are really good at one thing that humans aren't, its finding a needle in a haystack. However, if you aren't allowed to describe the needle well enough, then you are going to have to manually sift through half the haystack. An enormous haystack in this case.
The Strength of Weak Ties is an important concept in social networking. In a nutshell, it states that if you and I are connected, then there is a weak connection between anyone in my network and anyone in your network. This creates a very complex (think hundreds of thousands of connections between thousands of people), but weak network.
An example of this in action could be me needing to get my bike worked on. Sure, I could just bring it down to the REI or to Gart's, but I like to support the little guy, hopefully someone "in the family" (my network). I rifle through the rolodex in my head, thinking of the bike nerds that I know. Greg. Call Greg. "Hey, Greg, I need to get my bike fixed, who do you know?". Greg says he has a great friend who just opened a bike shop that is right in my neighborhood, and he could really use the work. Perfect.
So, this guy with the bike shop just got some new business, just because he knows someone who knows someone. Ok, that is nothing particularly insightful or new. That has happened for years, certainly way before the social scientists decided to stick a name on it.
Why do the so-called social networking sites not even recognize weak ties? If I look at *any* user's page on MySpace, it says "X is in your extended network". Well, I assert that they aren't. They are in my network... just because they are on MySpace? That isn't good enough. MySpace isn't a trusted associate who I can trust to only hook me up with good people. For someone to be in my "extended network", I need someone who I know to vouch for them. Going back to my example, I need my friend Greg to tell me that the guy with the bike shop is a good guy. I wouldn't just put up a post on Craigslist saying "Hey, I need someone to work on my bike, anyone know anyone?". I would certainly get a bunch of referrals, but none of them would come with the endorsement of someone I know.
A little math to show what I'm talking about. I'll use MySpace as an example again. I have about 100 friends on MySpace, and the majority of them are actually friends, people who I know in real life. For the sake of this argument and to keep the numbers nice and round, we'll just say that each of my friends (and each of their friends) have 100 friends apeice. We won't bother with duplicate friends on other people's lists, nor will we worry about celebrities and other "non-friends" being on people's lists.
How it works:
my "extended network" is something like 80 million people, to whom I am supposedly directly connected by virtue of the fact that we are all on MySpace.
How it should work:
My network is 100 people
My "1st degree" network is 10,000 people
My "2nd degree" network is 1,000,000 people
and so on...
Those 10,000 people in my "1st degree" network are people who I am actually connected to! These are people who I could get their number from someone who I know well and call them and say "Hey, I'm a friend of X, and he said I could call you to ask about Y", and it would totally fly.
Now, lets say you are browsing people in your town and you see a picture of a really lovely boy or girl named "Z". You look at their profile and there is a chain that shows the connection:
Me --> X --> Y --> Z
And you think, "Holy crap! I can just call X and see if they can call Y and get the skinny on Z and see if we can't get connected up"
Or even better: Me --> X --> Z
Then you can just call your good friend X and ask them to tell you something about Z and if X thinks you should get together.
Or think about browsing MySpace with a filter that goes something like "Only show me people within X degrees of separation".
Suddenly, you can get search results that only include people to whom you are actually connected in some useful way. We've just fixed a huge part of the search problem not by describing the needle better (we actually want that part to be able to be as fuzzy as possible), but by excluding 99.9% of the haystack that we don't really have ready access to.
Of course, you can just buy into their "extended network" and try to connect yourself up with strangers. Just be careful, OK? Meet in a public place the first couple times you get together. ;-)