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New Google Research On Social Networks

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the someone-research-the-superpoke dept.

mantis2009 writes "Paul Adams, a senior user experience researcher at Google, has posted a slideshow from a recent presentation that shows insightful research into how people use social networking technologies. The presentation describes several shortcomings of existing technology, and it highlights specific modalities that current technology (ahem, Facebook) gets wrong. Adams concludes that social networking applications are a 'crude approximation' of real-life social networks. 'People don't have one group of friends,' Adams research in several different countries shows that in reality, most people have between four to six groups of friends. He argues that social networking applications need to be built with that reality in mind."

4 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Just to point out... by Traegorn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Facebook DOES support multiple groups of friend -- you can create separate friend lists and subdivide what permissions different sets get.

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    TRHOnline - Staggering Towards Brilliance
    1. Re:Just to point out... by mantis2009 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Separating friend lists on Facebook as you describe doesn't support all of the functions mentioned in the slideshow. For example, posting comments on Facebook photos goes out to all people with permission to see your comments on photos. The slideshow suggests allowing different comments to be seen by different groups of friends. In the current Facebook implementation, your friends either have permission to see all your comments on all photos, or none.

  2. More than one... by Itninja · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use multiple SN's. For professional contacts I use LinkedIn. For personal contacts I use Google Buzz (or at least did until recently). For imaginary contacts I use WoW.

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    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  3. Re:First! by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The proper way to express your feeling is to say "Dude, fuck Facebook. Seriously."