The Gong Show: The IRL Social Graph
Here’s a question I’ve been tossing around for the past week: Which web service has the best representation of the In-Real-Life (IRL) social graph? Knowing who is *actually* friends with whom IRL (and not just accepting a friend request out of social guilt or apathy) would be a valuable data set…
Andrew Parker asks a very interesting question about the social graph on his blog. He runs through the gauntlet of social networks hitting the bigger (Facebook) and smaller (Foursquare, Blackberry Messenger). While small, Andrew believes that due to the sensitivity of local data Foursquare has the closest thing. I disagree.
Foursquare may have a better social graph than Facebook, but it isn’t anywhere close to an in real life social graph. Andrew makes the point himself, “Foursquare isn’t popular enough to own the IRL social graph yet because most of my IRL friends are not on Foursquare and have no interest in Foursquare (yet).” While there may be a time when more people use it, because of the launch of Facebook Places people will default to using that if they tip their toes into location. When they do that, they won’t change the privacy settings to make a subset of Facebook users an “in real life social graph” but rather change their check-in behavior to more trivial locations like their office, coffee shop with long time lapses between check-ins.
People won’t change their privacy settings on Facebook (or any network) to a true “in real life” network because they can’t. These social networks are static, our “in real life” network morphs and changes from day to day. Foursquare may be able to guess who it is based on check-ins, but what about the friends across the country that I still talk to regularly? Facebook is close, but will only be able to guess.
What about Google Voice (or just your phone records), Andrew points out the flaw in that, “Google Voice doesn’t know if a person I call often is an old college roommate I’m reconnecting with or a newly minted MBA that I’m phone-screening, and the difference between those two types of calls is essential to mapping the IRL social graph.”
So, who gets the graph? Google. Not Google Voice, or Gmail or even Buzz. Just Google. To make all of the right connections, an intelligent search that morphs across time based on communication frequency, strength of connection and relevancy to now all comprise the “in real life social graph.” Connections on LinkedIn, Facebook, Foursqare, wall posts, check-ins, texts, calls, time of calls, length of calls, etc all matter. The “in real life social graph” isn’t made by you, it is determined. This can be scary. But, this is where I believe we are headed.
