Thoughts on the Social Graph

Jamie found an excellent story about the trouble with social graphs. The author discusses the proliferation of social networking websites, the annoying problems this creates, and proposes an open solution to much of the problem. Essentially he is talking about an API for all those relationship systems not under the control of any single commercial entity, coupled with a shared login system. Had things like this been popularized a half a decade ago, we'd be looking at a different internet.

Comments

Yawn.

[morgan_greywolf]

Yet another article about how all social networks should be standardized and have centralized user management. This is the Internet, folks. Decentralization is the name of the game. Get used to it.

So you want to change the Internet...

[Tucan]

How about an RFC instead of a web page?

And we want this *why*?

[pla]

What I mean by "social graph" is a the global mapping of everybody and how they're related

Just that? Why, sure, I'll gladly make enough info public on myself and my friends to make identity theft nearly trivial. And hey, as a perk, if I ever find myself on the run from the police (for example, after someone steals my identity and gets me flagged as a major contributor to Al Qaida), they'll have a convenient list of everyone I might contact. Golly, what not to love about that?



People are getting sick of registering and re-declaring their friends on every site

Why, exactly, does "every site" need to know my friends? For that matter, why should any sites know my friends? And I don't mean in the Slashdot Friends/Foe sense - I have plenty of both, solely for the purpose of moderation. Of over 100 people on my lists here, I only actually know three of them, and one of those I've never even met.

If a site actually needs to know my friends/family/coworkers, you can safely bet on my not wanting to use that site.

For the record, I get sick of registering at websites not because it takes too long to come up with fake info, but because for the majority of them, I shouldn't need to create a personalized account in the first place! If I find something through Google, I don't want a lasting relationship with a site, I just want my damned content. If I buy something as a one-off purchase, I don't want an account, I just want the transaction completed and all my info expunged from the site. Unless I specifically ask a website to give me a persistant profile, don't force one on me - it only wastes time, and I won't rememeber what fake info I put in next time anyway (hell, I must have over fifty logins at the NYT).



This sounds like yet another one of those non-issues that give marketing gurus wet dreams and serve no purpose beyond stripping us of any semblance of privacy and anonymity. Brad can keep his thoughts, I want no part of it.

Re:And we want this *why*?

[mdwh2]

Why, exactly, does "every site" need to know my friends? For that matter, why should any sites know my friends? And I don't mean in the Slashdot Friends/Foe sense - I have plenty of both, solely for the purpose of moderation.

Actually, this is the sense that is meant. Usually sites, just like Slashdot, use "Friend" to imply some specific feature, whether it's who you want to see certain personal data, or whose journals or comments you want to read. It's unfortunate that the word "friend" has been overloaded, but Slashdot is just as guilty of this.

Given that LiveJournal - created by the author of this essay - uses "friend" to mean something specific, I imagine the author is talking about "friend" in this sense, whether or not they really are your friends. Though the flaw I think (as I said in another comment) is that since different sites use "friend" differently, who you want as friends on one site may not be the same as who you want as a friend on another.

For the record, I get sick of registering at websites not because it takes too long to come up with fake info, but because for the majority of them, I shouldn't need to create a personalized account in the first place!

Agreed, and OpenID is one way round this (which was created by Brad, as it happens). This just goes one step further, for those sites (like LiveJournal, Facebook - or Slashdot) where you do want to enter this extra information.

Re:And we want this *why*?

[kebes]

Just that? Why, sure, I'll gladly make enough info public on myself and my friends to make identity theft nearly trivial.

Quite right. And it goes even deeper than that.

I know how to use the web in such a web that I'm "sufficiently anonymous." I know true anonymity is impossible (e.g. with an IP address and a subpoena), but I know how to restrict the information I give out to a level I am comfortable with, and totally out of my control.

One problem with ubiquitously-connected social networking is that I not only have to be careful what I reveal, but I am now very much dependent on what my "friends" decide to reveal about me. If they go mentioning personal information about me, and it's cross-connected through every social networking site I visit, then this represents a release of information beyond what I'm comfortable with.

Obviously this problem already exists (and currently results in, e.g., people wasting time un-tagging themselves from Facebook photos)... but a widely connected and widely available social graph exacerbates the problem. Suddenly I'm dependent upon the net savvy of every single person who is connected to me? (And, given the whole "six degrees" issue, that's a lot of not-so-savvy people.) No thanks.

The end result of more detailed, more available, social information is merely that those of us aware of the privacy implications will stop using social networking sites. Is that really the intent here?

Re:And we want this *why*?

[pla]

So... The whole concept of social networking has bypassed you entirely?

If you mean that I can't call myself one of the 1.4 million "friends" of the latest boy band - Yes, it has. I simply do not see the point of Myspace or Facebook other than as a free-as-in-beer webhost (with the hidden expense of having all your "friends" receive slightly better-targetted advertising).

If, however, you mean a real social network - I limit mine to people I actually know, people that (with very few exceptions) I have physically met. Friends and acquantances whose real names and at least partial contact info I know, whose birthday I might celebrate with them, whose voice I would recognize on the phone or whose face I would recognize in a crowd.



Call me a Luddite, but it disturbs me greatly to think that we have diluted the term "friend" to nothing more than a form of moderation roughly translating as something between fandom and "I like something about your web page".

Not going to happen

[Angst Badger]

"Dear commercial websites, could you please implement a system that will render yourself and your profit models irrelevant?"

It's my understanding that a crack team of programmers has been assigned to this problem. That team includes Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin. Good luck and godspeed.