Social Graph
This week we witnessed a tipping point for the term "Social Graph" -- originally a term used by mathematicians and sociologists -- currently the buzz of the social web community. When the designer of the web, Tim Berners-Lee [TBL], wrote a rambling post on the "Social Graph" the tipping concluded in a load cacophony of bloggers commenting on the concept.
One of TBL's insights was very simple, yet useful. He explained how Internet is changing focus from the connections between computers to the connections between people. Sir Tim explained the change using three, three-letter acronyms. First, he started with the III - International Information Infrastructure, in the USA it was originally known as the National Information Infrastructure. It grew up to be the Internet. On top of the III, TBL built the World Wide Web. And finally he sees the GGG, the Giant Global Graph, which will be built upon the existing technology of the III and WWW.
It is now obvious -- computer scientists and mathematical sociologists are long lost cousins!
The diagram above is my social graph from a very early on-line social network [OSN] -- Ryze. I am the green node in the middle, my friends in the OSN are the blue nodes, and their friends [my FOAFs] are the grey nodes. The red links show my connections and the connections amongst my friends and grey links complete my 2 step paths to the many FOAFs. As time went on, and more people joined the OSN, my social graph grew, but it never approached my actual social network -- it was only a slice. A slice of my real life.
Yet, slices are useful -- they show us a particular place at a particular time in a particular state. This is how CAT [computer assisted tomography] scans work -- their photographic slices of our complex bodies help doctors diagnose our ailments. You need the focused slice to understand, looking at the whole often results in overwhelming confusion.
Do we need the whole GGG? Yes, like a map of the world, and GPS, it will have applications. Yet, most of us are much happier with local maps [local to our network -- within a few links of us], revealing local dynamics for our local lives. If a freeway stops in Los Angeles, does the Cleveland commuter care?
One of TBL's insights was very simple, yet useful. He explained how Internet is changing focus from the connections between computers to the connections between people. Sir Tim explained the change using three, three-letter acronyms. First, he started with the III - International Information Infrastructure, in the USA it was originally known as the National Information Infrastructure. It grew up to be the Internet. On top of the III, TBL built the World Wide Web. And finally he sees the GGG, the Giant Global Graph, which will be built upon the existing technology of the III and WWW.
• III - how computers are connected
• WWW - how documents are connected
• GGG - how people are connected
It is now obvious -- computer scientists and mathematical sociologists are long lost cousins!
The diagram above is my social graph from a very early on-line social network [OSN] -- Ryze. I am the green node in the middle, my friends in the OSN are the blue nodes, and their friends [my FOAFs] are the grey nodes. The red links show my connections and the connections amongst my friends and grey links complete my 2 step paths to the many FOAFs. As time went on, and more people joined the OSN, my social graph grew, but it never approached my actual social network -- it was only a slice. A slice of my real life.
Yet, slices are useful -- they show us a particular place at a particular time in a particular state. This is how CAT [computer assisted tomography] scans work -- their photographic slices of our complex bodies help doctors diagnose our ailments. You need the focused slice to understand, looking at the whole often results in overwhelming confusion.
Do we need the whole GGG? Yes, like a map of the world, and GPS, it will have applications. Yet, most of us are much happier with local maps [local to our network -- within a few links of us], revealing local dynamics for our local lives. If a freeway stops in Los Angeles, does the Cleveland commuter care?
posted by Valdis at
9:23 PM
2 Comments:
Interesting post, and I like that graph you produced there.
I agree that what we're all really excited about right now is the potential to take these slices from the various services they're in and put them together to form a bigger picture. In fact, I'm working on a project right now that lets users do just that: break their social graph out of the walled gardens and into an easily accessible place.
Currently we've got RESTful XML access in place and I'm personally adding FOAF export support this week. What I'm really interested right now is the huge amount of creative potential for access to this kind of data. I wonder, how would someone like you personally use a FOAF or Atom feed of your entire social graph?
By the way, we're looking for some early alpha testers some time early December if you're interested. Just drop me a line at nick@beyondthepath.com :)
By
Nick Zadrozny, at 11/24/2007 6:06 PM
I have to say interestingly enough, that the Showtime show The L-Word, has a storyline about a 'chart' of who has been linked romantically to who. This spinned off onto a website http://www.ourchart.com although this is a typical social networking website targeted at lesbians. It would be interesting to know if there were a social networking website that did have the capability to show everyone's social graph.
By
~Julie Phineas~, at 1/12/2008 4:57 PM
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