Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Beyond "Six Degrees"
Bill French of MYST Technology Partners has been working on using blogs, rss and integration with information objects as a basis for building ad hoc networks that "connect people with question to people with answers." Beyond access to information (which may drive initial connections) the idea is to help people find one another to make more lasting, open connections.
One of the things I find lacking in many social networking services (Orkut, Tribe, LinkedIn, Spoke, etc.) is that the connection finding process is very manual. The value of these connections is also easily diluted by network whores who view these services as popularity contests.
Building networks through friend-of-a-friend connections is only one way of building relationships of trust. Another way is to establish reputation systems that can automate introductions between people with similar interests and reputations. Reputations are likely to emerge from people's relationship to information objects published by a specific person (and it doesn't have to be limited to "rate this object" types of interaction).
Effective reputation systems can turn random strangers into potentially interesting strangers.
For example, someone like Cory Doctorow may be annoyed by receiving invitations to YANS (yet another social networking services) from random strangers (and he was repeatedly said so in his writings). However, he probably would like an introduction from a stranger who is an established expert on DisneyWorld.
Similar to the way you can limit comments to read on Slashdot based on their rating, the idea would be to set a profile that will automatically introduce you to someone based on a shared interest and a minimum reputation rating. If both parties accept the introduction, then the connection is made. You might also want the option to "watch this person" (similar to "watch this auction item" at ebay) before making the stronger commitment to contact that person and invite him/her into your network.
Regardless of which methods are used to track reputations, they will likely need to have to go beyond FOAF rankings to include some measure(s) of quality regarding the information objects that a person publishes.
One of the things I find lacking in many social networking services (Orkut, Tribe, LinkedIn, Spoke, etc.) is that the connection finding process is very manual. The value of these connections is also easily diluted by network whores who view these services as popularity contests.
Building networks through friend-of-a-friend connections is only one way of building relationships of trust. Another way is to establish reputation systems that can automate introductions between people with similar interests and reputations. Reputations are likely to emerge from people's relationship to information objects published by a specific person (and it doesn't have to be limited to "rate this object" types of interaction).
Effective reputation systems can turn random strangers into potentially interesting strangers.
For example, someone like Cory Doctorow may be annoyed by receiving invitations to YANS (yet another social networking services) from random strangers (and he was repeatedly said so in his writings). However, he probably would like an introduction from a stranger who is an established expert on DisneyWorld.
Similar to the way you can limit comments to read on Slashdot based on their rating, the idea would be to set a profile that will automatically introduce you to someone based on a shared interest and a minimum reputation rating. If both parties accept the introduction, then the connection is made. You might also want the option to "watch this person" (similar to "watch this auction item" at ebay) before making the stronger commitment to contact that person and invite him/her into your network.
Regardless of which methods are used to track reputations, they will likely need to have to go beyond FOAF rankings to include some measure(s) of quality regarding the information objects that a person publishes.
