Future of the *Social Internet*?

[HilbertSpace]

Social media seems to be a hot topic but with a lot of tension from two aspects:

(1) There is a lot of talk about developing and delivering more in social media. The more might be from things new in each of data sources, data manipulation techniques, Web sites, or companies. There might be more in just the content or in social search to find such content.

(2) There is not much clarity about just how to have more in social media or just why to have it. For the "why", what users want it, and what would they do with it?

Here are two examples of some of the recent talk about social media:

First, here on HN is the thread:

"Sergey Brin: We’ve Touched 1 Percent Of What Social Search Can Be (techcrunch.com)"

at

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/sergey-brin-weve-touched-1-percent-of-what-social-search-can-be/

Second, is the thread "Building Better Social Graphs" at Fred Wilsons blog A VC* at:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/building-better-social-graphs.html#disqus_thread

with a lot of relatively good relevant comments.

In Fred Wilson's thread "Building Better Social Graphs", there were two strikingly different themes:

First, Wilson started the thread with a post where he wanted to be able to download each of his social graphs and then curate them himself.

Second, in the comments, the theme was strong that given the data on the social graphs, we should have computer-based means to process the data for curation, etc. Curiously, the goal of this processing was Wilson's "Building Better Social Graphs" by stronger means than just Wilson's manual curation! That is, Wilson's title was stronger than Wilson's post, and the comments were closer to the title than the post was!

So, from 40,000 feet up, it appears that many people have some vague, ill-defined, intuitive, poorly identified and articulated visions of making progress with social graphs. Each of (A) the broad subject of social, (B) Facebook, (C) Twitter, and (D) the Internet is so big that we should take the visions, as crude as they are, seriously.

Three issues:

(1) Meaning.

An arc in a graph from the definition in applied math has essentially no meaning in any sense social or even practical. So, if we are to make use of data from social graphs, etc., then we should make some progress, if only rough, on what the arcs, or other data, mean.

(2) Purpose.

We should identify the purpose of the software. That is, what will be the output of the software, and why will users like that output? Or, what do users want, or at least would like if they saw it, that such software might provide? What the heck is the darned purpose?

(3) Techniques.

Given the data, what data manipulation techniques will we have the software use to get the results good for the purposes?

I raise one more point:

The US has something over 300 million people. In some important respects, this number is not very large. E.g., it is easy enough for current computing and data base techniques to have, say, 1 million bytes on each person and still be able to store and process that data.

So, it can appear that there is a chance that we could have a single, grand solution in the space of social graphs and social search. If so, then we will guess that the present efforts in social media are only tangential or indirect solutions for a central problem not yet identified, articulated, or solved and that a single, grand solution might be possible.

Net, we have potentially a grand answer to the issue what data.

Then we can move on to what purposes? What will people what to do with this data?

What more is there to be said?

Where can we be more clear on the data, purposes, processing, and future of social whatever via the Internet?

[carlgrimm]

I say start with the purpose and work backwards. As the good Dr. Lecter said, "First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?"

People really only use data for a few reasons - to be or take action towards pleasure, to reduce risk, save time or make money. Combine any of the following for extra points.

Why then do we love data that is socially generated or a derivative thereof? It turns out to be really good at leading to those outcomes as it communicates experiences others have actually had.

Take Amazon's 5 star rating system. A very nice graphical device that helps me lower the risk I will buy a bad product. You know what is even better? The graph showing the counts of ratings in each star. It tells so much more! I make better decisions. I don't buy anything without first checking if Amazon has a rating.

If you are going to show me a graph - it better lead to one of those outcomes and rather quickly. Once you nail down the purpose then you can decide everything else.

[HilbertSpace]

Okay, in general, good.

Now, for the social Internet, what are the purposes? E.g., why do 500+ million people use Facebook? Why do so many people use Twitter?

Okay, once we have thought about those old cases, assuming the huge amounts of data on social graphs in principle available, to what purpose might that data be put?

E.g., Fred Wilson wants to get copies of his social graphs and then manipulate, curate, them himself. Okay, but for what purposes?

Then as in the posts in his thread, how to process the social graph data automatically for Fred's or other purposes, and, again, what purposes?

E.g., maybe the purposes are introductions of one person to another or, say, one person to a group. Again, for what purposes? "May I have the envelope please?" Here is a list -- hobbies, careers, looking for a supplier, customer, employer, employee, date, spouse, cello in a string quartet.

Then if the purposes are mostly just introductions, how are the problem and solution much different than the introductions via the present romantic matchmaking sites?

Uh, Brin indicated that 99% of what can be done has yet to be done, or some such. So, what are the purposes of the other 99%? So, is Brin's 99% just an expansion of the idea of romantic matchmaking sites?

In simplest terms, what are the important candidate purposes for which people would want the results of software that manipulates data on social graphs?

I'm asking because the question seems big, hot, and important, and I don't have any very good answers. Here I may not be alone: Facebook, Twitter, etc. seem important, but finding clear and seemingly accurate statements of the important purposes they serve is not so easy.

But there is potentially a LOT of data so that if we could be clear on purposes, then maybe we could achieve some of them.

Let's do some guessing:

Social search might necessarily be quite close to personal interest search. Then the main purpose of social whatever on the Internet would be some personal interest so that doing a personal interest search would yield arcs in the user's social graph, where each such arc leads to a node good for that user's personal interest and, thus, leads to Wilson's "Building Better Social Graphs".

In particular, we can have bars, art galleries, concerts, adult education classes, country clubs, yacht clubs, high school and college alumni meetings, and, quite particular to the Internet, topical blogs.

So, each of these social activities can further a person's personal interests and build arcs in the person's corresponding social graph.

Then, perhaps, finding such a topical blog, the user could post some comments. Eventually maybe someone would post "For all blog users in and near Seattle, this Friday let's meet for pizza and beer at Joe's place".

So, the purpose would be to meet some people who share some interests and a geographical area.

The Internet has been used for such things. So, the purpose is to meet people with shared interests and geography. So, the purpose seems to be one that could be accomplished better by a slight generalization of Internet romantic matchmaking services.

If so, then how come Facebook and Twitter are big things far from the matchmaking services that are much smaller things?