Eszter Hargittai discusses Friendster and social networks in a blog entry entitled “Six degrees of separation or unification?” Topics of interest: the value of size, the significance of Friendster, the role of presenting oneself, the importance of groups. Eszter’s views are very in line with mine, although i find all of these questions so interesting that i do see Friendster as a good lesson.
Hmm.. i’m really curious what Craigslist: the movie could possibly end up looking like… Of course, if y’all want to participate, they’re collecting stories on Monday.
I was speaking with a friend tonite about the structure of communities. During this conversation, he told me that i needed to remember that even in the realm of communities, there are scientists and engineers.
Scientists want to understand the theories behind something and they’re willing to use tools when necessary to get to the core of why/how.
Engineers want to build things and they’re willing to use theory when it will help the construction.
I like this separation.
This morning, i presented Social Network Fragments to an audience of computer graphics aficionados. The talk went well and, conveniently, I finished up by talking about the emergence of articulated social networking systems. I say that this was convenient because folks were riled up to talk about Friendster and thus focused their questions on that.
In the process of giving this talk (and answering 2 hours of on and off stage questions), i found myself addressing a clear distinction between behavior-driven networks (i.e. email, phone records), articulated networks (i.e. LJ, blogrolling, Friendster, etc.) and real social networks. Neither behavior-driven or articulated networks are actually completely representative of an individual’s real network. They are both stand-ins used by researchers and system designers to deal with the fact that people have a deep understanding of the nuances of their relationships, yet they are dreadful at discussing them.
Many social networks researchers ask people to list their closest friends. In these scenarios, there is little motivation to impress the researcher, yet people are still not exact about prioritizing and indicating everyone in their life. In public articulated networks, a whole new conundrum appears one has to articulate one’s network as a public essence and thus must also show face in doing so. Behavior-driven networks are not the end-all-be-all either. I talk to many people more often than my best friend, but it’s the depth and value of our conversations that make her so important to me.
When it comes to devising systems that capitalize on people’s networks, we’re pretty dreadful at assuring that they are truly meaningful. They are improperly segmented, poorly prioritized and their public nature requires them to be quite artificial. Additionally, articulation of our identity in any form is not our best suit. Figuring out how to take this into account is quite fascinating. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between behavior-driven and articulation? Perhaps not.
Surveil Me! Layers of public and private online is an article discussing the space surrounding surveillance of strangers, friends and potential lovers through trust, reputation, and presence. In covering privacy, it addresses Friendster specifically:
More genuinely novel is the sort of human networking enabled by the increasingly popular Friendster network, where circles of friends can be Venn-diagrammed and browsed in a database that would boggle the mind of the most ardent Kevin Bacon fan. Users post photographs and personal profiles for the perusal of friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends.
The author specifically addresses the notion that Friendster profiles aren’t technically public, but might as well be given the percentage of people beyond your friends who have access to them.
I will be rushing back from SIGGRAPH to attend Monkey vs. Robot – an Art and Dance Party at False Profit that will help raise funds for all of the fabulous art that FP is going to be taken to Burning Man. Yay for good dancing, great people and fabulous art!
I’m currently attending SIGGRAPH (where i’m presenting a piece on Social Network Fragments.
This blog will be updated when i return.
Tribe.net launched in beta form (discussed on boingboing). Tribe is focused on providing users with a way to use their social network to gain access to listings, recommendations and other Craigslike-esque features. There is also a greater emphasis on “Tribes” (a.k.a. groups) that allows people to gather, post announcements and otherwise share amongst particular groups of interest.