Lisa Vaas reports in e-week that while Friendster has proven the previously thought impossible - you can not make money from sex - they are still desperately in search of a business model. Now Friendster wants to inflict their networking software on businesses. This vague and upexpounded upon statement indicates one thing, they don't want to tackle the real problem with social networking software.
Social networks are about networking. Yet most, if not all, are hyperegalitarian. Treating all links as Equal. If I know 40 people and have them in my friends lists, the world sees them as all of equal importance to me.
So if I put my wife and a guy I met at a conference in my list, the world sees those as of equal weight.
But I really like my wife!
Some try to give people weight by allowing users to say something really nice about other users. These testimonials conceptually show that people are really really liked. But as Sally Struthers will attest, someone really liking you in a specific context doesn't count for much in the long run.
Testimonials are, at best, a band-aid and at worst lip-service to the need for some sort of contact weighting technology. I, personally, don't have a ready solution to this, but I do have some thoughts of what the solution would be built on.
Context
Under what circumstances would you recommend this person for something. I might know a plumber who is horrendous at finish work but the absolute best at roughing-in. In a conversation this would come out, but in a social networking program they appear as "plumber". This is of utmost importance when companies are looking for ultra-specialized help.
Depth
Have you known this person for 8 minutes, are you link-swapping, did you go to college with them, are you sleeping with them? Many people in my LinkedIn list are largely unknown to me. They are still valid contacts, but they are not deep contacts.
Reputation
What is their reputation like overall? Why does your opinion of them differ from the crowd? Can you explain some of misperceptions others may have of them?
Collaboration
In what ways have you directly worked with this person? How has that had an impact on your opinion of them?
These may just seem like detail, but the social networking system providers have a tough job here. I don't want to link to anyone if it's going to take me an hour to do so. And I don't really feel like writing up socio-psychohistories of everyone I come into contact with.
So the providers will have to devise proxies. The proxy needs to obviously serve as such and be rapid to define. And that's hard. However, though it may be difficult, it is essential if social networking will be anything beyond a shared rolodex or a quick-sex portal for teenagers.
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