| Weblog: | An experiment with online social networking | |
| Subject: | Good Grief! | |
| Date: | 2004-04-06 04:39:51 | |
| From: | kowenswp | |
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Andy, I understand. But, Scott what on earth are you talking about? "confirmed first-degree contact", "super-nodes", what's all that about? And let's be honest about it: the whole concept of Metainformation, as good as it is in theory, is problematic in practice for all too human reasons (Metacrap) All this social networking palaver is reminiscent of the online behavioral modeling and marketing bollocks of the .com excesses - an idea in search of a market rather that a product to fill a need or provide an advantage. What are the metrics? How does one measure the benefits of a social networking product? What can I do better? cheaper? faster? Degrees of separation seems to me a kind of fuzzy measure of a relationship. Is the one degree which exists between me and my brother equivalent to the one degree between me and my ex-wife? I wouldn't think so. Perhaps the products will be sucessful within pre-existing real communities such as business enterprises, industry groups etc. At least that might provide a common context for the relationships and allow greater consensus regarding the value of those relationships. |
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