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Opening up the Social Network Graph
radar.oreilly.com — Users and developers alike are going crazy. There's too many social networks out there to keep track of. Developers want to make more, and users want to join more, but it's all too much work to re-enter your friends and data. We need to lower the amount of pain for both users and developers and let a thousand new social applications bloom.
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- leahculver, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Great work David and Brad. The glue guy still makes me giggle though.
- gwachob, on 10/10/2007, -5/+3I think we'll be discussing this at barcamp block tomorrow and sunday in palo alto - see http://barcampblock.crowdvine.com
- lukwam, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2This sounds like it has a lot of potential! Exciting stuff, great work.
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4But it will never work. The networks whose cooperation will be most critical to make this works are the big players...and they will have no interest in establishing more competition for ad revenue and eyeball time. If this had occured when it should have 5 years ago, it may have had a shot, but now, it would have to be force fed somehow.
- nmckinlay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The only big players in the game are Facebook and MySpace... and Facebook has shown interest in cooperating. It is only myspace that hasn't... and quite frankly, who cares about them?
I could see Friendster jumping on the bandwagon simply for the sake of reviving themselves. As Brian has said in his work, the smaller networks are all looking to jump on already.
- nmckinlay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The only big players in the game are Facebook and MySpace... and Facebook has shown interest in cooperating. It is only myspace that hasn't... and quite frankly, who cares about them?
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4But it will never work. The networks whose cooperation will be most critical to make this works are the big players...and they will have no interest in establishing more competition for ad revenue and eyeball time. If this had occured when it should have 5 years ago, it may have had a shot, but now, it would have to be force fed somehow.
- xiambax, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Brads been trying to get something likes his OpenID in affect for awhile.
Someone needs to make a site that allows you to control parts of social networks and turns them into web 2.0 widgets you can move around and edit on one single page. that would be neato. - iViper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/#howhelp
Give some credit where it is due - 3tcp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Social networks are overrated. The time spent entering in everyones information is nothing compared to the time wasted actually using them.
- bizchris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think the same could be said of lots of systems before they hit their innovation point that made them more usable.
- timbro1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/#howhelp
- alexforcefive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"All I can say is: finally!"
Yeah that was a really worthwhile blog post and digg submission. Thanks. - krnldmp, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Meanwhile the real world and suitably secure internet are becoming integrated to such an extent and fast enough as to make Socialist Network sites obsolete before they get any more useful to business and government organizations.
Thanks for your effort, "developers". - Spoomeister, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5The only thing that differentiates one "social network" site from another is a) the UI and b) the fact that you made your social network connections via that site.
Why would I encourage my friends to go to LJ, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc., when I have a neato app that puts the same info out on all of them? I really wouldn't care which site they used to get it, just that I see them somewhere and that I don't have to use half a dozen different pages and logins to read about it. As an analogy: I don't care what email provider they use, I'm still getting email from them via . So I'm not really driven to recommend any one email provider over another.
If any kind of grand unified API / tool was ever created that let someone put the same infomation on multiple sites, eventually the sites would stagnate and die off, leaving only one or two of them left.
Which is why I'd think such a project will never succeed. Or, if it does, it will be in spite of the social networking sites' best efforts to prevent it. - psylence, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Users want to join more? Seriously?
- tempusrob, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4"We need to lower the amount of pain for both users and developers and let a thousand new social applications bloom."
No, what we need is for social networks to implement standards-based solutions for distributing/sharing identity data (i.e. hCard or vCard, perhaps). Spoomeister (a few comments up from me) has it right. I think the coolest thing in the world would be to be able to say to someone "Yeah, my URI is http://www.whatever.com/me" ... then they can plug that URI into their PIM (Outlook or whatever) and have it populate the data automagically. Much like email or phone providers don't matter, neither should a social network provider.- Lightspeed2, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1dugg down becase you dont understand how the social networks work, the networks are businesses, they arent here to connect everyone and make everyone happy, all of them (especially myspace) are made to stuff ads down your throat and profit off of you.
- tempusrob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Dugg down because you made certain irrelevant assumptions about my post. :|
- Lightspeed2, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1dugg down becase you dont understand how the social networks work, the networks are businesses, they arent here to connect everyone and make everyone happy, all of them (especially myspace) are made to stuff ads down your throat and profit off of you.
- rkminc, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I think the issue of social network fatigue and the "walled garden" problem is overblown. Having competing networks is better overall for the consumer in the end, in terms of innovation. My 2c here: http://mediatrending.com/2007/08/18/social-networks-as-walled-gardens-whats-the-issue/
- VeroZ, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Worst. Username. Ever.
- MikelHolyfield, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?
- DJaurola, on 10/15/2007, -0/+0makes perfect sense. I filled in 4 profiles and that was enough. Why not just have 'my profile' which can dock to as many neat places I wish to attend. The better the place the longer I stay [advertising measurement stuff]. I can also clone myself. I am not worried about that, neither should the advertisers. My pages might just be the cool stuff lots of people visit while I take a zzzzz. The structure proposed sounds good to me. Is that what the Google one is about. To Google it does not matter where we locate our pages as long as the pages are there, no? Also Google would be pleased about the cloning, the advertisers should too as we do have the core to us and then the many aspects. A Google gift to mankind - decentralised social graph run by Google efficiency? :-) I am building a business relying on social graphs and I am not concerned - if this is done right that is.
- 18dig, on 12/03/2007, -0/+0Very educative and inspiring. I work with clients (and interactive agencies) who do not always understand social networks and certainly are at a loss as to whether and how they ought to leverage them. As important as the concept of social network (and the Graph) might be and become, implementation seem to be quite cumbersome. The improvements will come from both techies and users but certainly outside of any top-down model or centralized entity. This crucial point was very well made in this article. Thank you !
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