FdP Weblog

Do current social networking sites (myspace, facebook just to provide a few recognisable examples) provide real access to our social graph?

Do they provide a real map of our ties and links with other individuals? Do they closely depict our personal profile, i.e. an overall picture of our values, visions, ideas, financial resources, friends, kins, competitors and enemies, partners, web links, sexual orientations, dietary habits, airline routes……?

Still they don’t!

To reach this outcome, they should have access to the carbon copies of our e.mails, phones, address books, favourite sites, and to a number of applications we daily use to network with other people, even if they are not considered straight forward as social networking applications!

In practice current systems do not allow an exhaustive picture of our relationships, neither a distinction between a close friendship and a shallow connection. Our networks are full of intruders who want  just to take quick advantage of our knowledge and contacts or bald who want to sell their hair growth lotions and spam us with infomercials, without being interested to build any long term or mutually beneficial relationship!

On the other side you may think that an advanced, exhaustive social graph could be too intrusive of your privacy! Guess what a mine of detailed info for any company willing to identify its best markets.

I agree with you,  BUT…this is where technology is going in the next 4-5 years.

Do we want to watch things happen or  make things happen? Where do WE – users – want to go?

I’ve been working for ten years in the education sector and I can’t help but believing that spontaneous groups built on the real interests and credibility of their members can really enhance research  and students’ professional opportunities .

Guess for a while what could happen if when you do a research on the web you can have access to a list of people and groups who have made any significant  contribution to the topic at hand! This way students can discover insights and connections that bring their researches out of a mere theoretical perspective  and provide a real link with the professional world.

This is just an example that refers to my professional interests. But my personal interests about social operating systems go far beyond education. Education is just one of the possible fields of application which can take advantage of my contacts’ professional and personal interests .

Read this blog (blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7503) , where Jerry Yang (Yahoo co-founder and CEO) presents YahooLIFE, and let me know your ideas!

Obviously my  post is also  an experiment to see how many members of my facebook community really share my interests. Your replies will contribute to tailor and define my social graph