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Agreed, I think that no social network so far can accurately reflect true friendships. And I think that the fundamental system of "friends" is still very raw. In my opinion, a basic start in the right direction would be groupings, where different groups have different permissions and interaction options.
As for the data, agree that I don't think anybody has it. It's too diverse. For me, personally, my connections are mostly through IM (and now Twitter). A lot less through email and networks. So yeah, that's another factor to throw in. IM.
Love that people are starting to question this more, though, and hopefully we'll see some developments.
I wrote something similar (although not as thorough or complete) when I was thinking about why so many of the Google products seem to have an awkward time distilling my social network based on the signals they have at their disposal. You can read the full post here: http://www.charleshudson.net/?p=420
Overall, I don't know that anyone has all the data required to make a good inference about the strength of connection I have with someone else. As a user, I don't even have all of the data available in a form that I could share it with a trusted service who would do the processing for me.
My hotmail contact list was my most complete social network but I gave it up for Gmail a few months ago and now it's out of date. Gmail automatically adds any addressee to contacts when you send them an email so my Gmail contacts list is full of random people. Google seem to be trying to get round this by using Chat contacts which require an extra step of authentication.
The key I think lies with standards and interoperability. Phone's are completely interoperable. I can phone anyone regardless of what phone company or phone they use. Email is completely interoperable and standards based. I can email anyone regardless of what email client they use. IM is slowly (very slowly) going the same way. Unfortunately standards and inoperability dissipate value for large walled gardens like facebook and Skype. It's the way it has to go though.
Hi Andrew. Very good analysis. I like it. It helps me understand better how relationships evolve over time. But it also leads to a thin line many services cross in asking themselfes the wrong question. Facebook is doing that too. It shouldn't be about who has the best data or the best representation of relationships. That question originates from a desire to monetize that data, as walled garden services like Facebook are doing. And althought hat sounds great for an investor or service providers perspectinve, it doesn't provide the user any value.
There is a tendency to try and monetize the social graph figuring that the personal data and relationships between people will lead to better advertisement. At the same time this business model enforces walled gardens and a war over data.Again, not in the interest of the user.
There is an obvious but not so simple solution to get out of that advertisement trap. We should be concentrating on the creation of user value, and monetize that, instead of monetizing a social graph. The whole social graph thing is a techie created problem anyways. There is already a place where all your social data is at. It is in your head, and in your daily interactions. You know exactly who is and isn't your friend, how important he or she is to you, and you use all the different means to communicate with them. E-mail, Facebook, phone, anything. A central "address book" might be handy for that, but users cope with that problem already so it isn't a big issue. I feel we shouldn't be focussing on the social graph, we should be focussing on provinding value and facilitating the interaction between people. That is where the money is at.
Hello Andrew, thanks for sharing the comic as well as the detailed analysis. I blogged about your post at http://www.thinking-forward.com/2008/01/facebook-fun.html
I look forward to learning more from you.
Regards,
Joe Bruzzese
very good post, though I don't know if I agree with the 'stale' point in it's entirety, because I have a number of 'stale' connections - haven't seen, been near, spoken to, or emailed in year+, but still very 'close' to (in the emotional sense.
To your last sentence: I would love Google to quickly integrate GrandCentral. And with OpenSocial I think they're a year or two away from what you just said. ;)