Anthropological perspective on Trust

Image by Dave Duarte via Flickr

I ran across this interesting article written for the New York Times in 2007 that discusses social networks from the perspective of anthropology of tribal cultures. I won't go over the whole article, instead I want to highlight an interesting paragraph.

“In tribal cultures, your identity is completely wrapped up in the question of how people know you,” he says. “When you look at Facebook, you can see the same pattern at work: people projecting their identities by demonstrating their relationships to each other. You define yourself in terms of who your friends are.”

In two previous posts, I talked about trust & measures of trust. The identity talked about in the quote, forms you standing within the tribe. It is derived from what the community thinks of you. PeerIndex is building a way to project that identity at a much lower cost.

"As intriguing as these parallels may be, they only stretch so far. There are big differences between real oral cultures and the virtual kind. In tribal societies, forging social bonds is a matter of survival; on the Internet, far less so."

I disagree with this conclusion, for the simple reason as more and more of our life is online in various virtual tribes, the social bonds formed online will become as important to survival as social bonds formed in the flesh. Granted we are not there yet, I foresee that PeerIndex (and similar services) will become fundamental to building the social bonds that allow you to survive in the 21st century.

RSS, Readers and Information Management

Image via Wikipedia

Several posts have looked at RSS Readers and even RSS itself questioning the need for these technologies especially with the growth in the use of Twitter and Facebook to discover news. These posts sing a premature song for the death of RSS and Readers.

RSS is a syndication protocol and is very suitable for syndicating content between applications. RSS readers are not the only use of RSS feeds. I fully expect that RSS will continue to be consumed primarily by applications rather than humans. RSS isn’t going away. It works and it is good enough for what it does.

RSS Readers are a different question. RSS Readers are primarily a way to make RSS feeds human consumable. As Dare pointed out most are based on the existing Email client paradigm. As Dare also points out this isn’t the best information paradigm for consuming large amounts of news. But this doesn’t necessitate the death of RSS Readers.

Twitter et al. are good for discovery, but not consumption. What is being seen here is a failure of filters based on time and space which no longer exist. It harks back to Clay Shirky’s comment about information overload actually being the failure of filters. What twitter et al. provide is a filter. Instead of seeing it as an either/or proposition, these filters need to be integrated into RSS Readers.

What we have is a need to evolve RSS Readers to have effective filters. RSS Readers are actually a misnomer as people focus on RSS rather than on the underlying concept of organising and presenting information. Let’s refer to the “ideal” as Information Management Application (IMA – got to love acronyms!).

IMA does the following:

1. Gathers information (whether from RSS, Twitter, Newswires etc.)
2. Filters and Organises information
3. Presents the resulting information

The problem with existing methods (i.e. RSS Readers) is that they have little to no filtering and organisation. IMAs provide a rich arrangement of filters and organisation methodologies to help manage the information ocean. Like panning for gold, the IMA sieves the information ocean to find the nuggets.

It is step 2 that makes the difference. A majority of the organisation and filtering can actually be done with by grouping related sources together (e.g. rather than have 100 articles about Apple buying Twitter, group all these articles together as one), organising the stack of articles by source (e.g. the act of adding a source to the IMA makes it more important than a source not actively added to the IMA) and then layering over than filtering based on what your social network has read or is pushing.

Add in metrics about how many articles are in a group, how fast the group is growing and how much attention others are paying to the group and suddenly the ocean of news is far more manageable. Add in a touch of human curation and you have the 21st version of the personalised newspaper.

IMAs will come in multiple variants be they desktop based or online. Google has the embryonic version in Google News and Google Reader. Yahoo can also create an IMA as the next evolution of Yahoo News. The field is wide open and like many things no IMA is going to suit everyone.

The Social Network has little Value in a World of Flow

Fred Wilson recently wrote a post about how the flow of data is important versus the data itself. Primarily in response to the ongoing bushfire in the blogsphere about Facebook and Google Friend Connect and the larger context of data portability.

The conceptual point of flow versus data is important one to highlight.

It is very easy to confuse the two. To an extent this is an artifact of our language which emphasises objects (nouns) over flow (verbs). But it is also influenced by trying to use an existing frame-of-reference to discuss a new frame-of-reference that is only just beginning to come into focus. This is always going to make everything more difficult.

The web is moving into uncharted territory. Up to now we have been dealing with the conversion of existing real-world into an online equivalent. Now the web has reached the point that it is moving beyond the confines of being a real-world analogy. This is creating vast new opportunities, few of which are known to us now. Data portability discussion exits within this new framework.

To make headway understanding this new framework, we need to converse using language that properly describes this new framework. The language of flow will help us frame problems and hold conversations that enable solutions and new opportunities.

In Wither Social Networks, Arise Communities I pointed out that social networks are glorified contact books. A better way to look at social networks is that the merely describe a connection between two people. They are the pipes, wave-guides, tubes along which guide the flow. What happens at the end points is not part of the social network.

In addition to the guides, we have process points. The process points are where points along a flow something happens to the flow. Whether its received (such as email), or processed (such as Wesabe). A process point is not necessarily where the flow stops, merely where it undergoes some sort of processing.

Facebook's aim is to become the primary process point. They know (or suspect) that merely having a description of a flow network is not enough. They have to be a processing point, but here is their dilemma: Facebook was never designed with being a processing point in mind, merely a description of a flow network. So their strategy is to try and control of the description of flow networks by restricting access while they shift to being a processing point, Facebook Connect being an example.

Bear in mind that the flow network description has little intrinsic value. It is the flows along the network where the value lies. In this Robert Scoble is wrong. It is not the flow network where the value lies but flow along the guides that is important.

So is Facebook right or is Google right? How about neither? Facebook's move is entirely about trying provide themselves with time to become a processing point and less of a pure flow network. Google's aim is to get access to the flow network in order to get access to the processing points. Google looses out if it doesn't know about the processing points. Neither are taking the positions they are merely out of moral indignation. I do find Google's behaviour less obnoxious than Facebook as Google's move is about access where as Facebook's is about control. Not really surprising given Facebook's past behaviour and in the words Umair, evilness.

Ultimately, it is a meaningless argument. The web is shifting so fast that both companies actions will soon be lost in the momentum in the move to flow. The flow based web even looks like it will overtake the Data Portability movement. Rendering the broader discussion irrelevant as well.

Tags: Social Networks, Facebook, Data Portability, Google, Web Next, Web 2.0, Fred Wilson, Robert Scoble, Umair Haque, Web Services

Wither Social Networks, Arise Communities

A community is an assemblage of people around a common interest. What Hugh MacLeod calls a social object. Social Networks, like Facebook, are glorified contact books. And as Facebook is finding out, people get stroppy when you get between them and their contact books.

A community, on the other hand, behaves differently. The members of a community are there because of the shared interest or bond, the social object. Consider the rise of communities around particular diseases as highlighted in this week’s NewScientist (vol 198, issue 2656). These communities are generating a wealth of data about these diseases that would otherwise be expensive or impossible to obtain. Communities tend to generate data around the particular shared interest beyond simply demographics that you get in a Social Network.

The data is hugely important. As Tim O’Reilly is fond of saying, “data inside” is the new “Intel Inside” (between time point 2.15 to 3:20 in the presentation). The value of web companies is entirely determined by the data they can aggregate and turn into new knowledge. Communities generate large amounts of data by harnessing the network effect. As each member adds more data around the shared interest this creates a positive feedback loop encouraging more people to add more data and so on in a virtuous cycle. A good example of this principle in action is the company Wesabe (also discussed by Tim O’Reilly in his keynote at 2008 Web2.0 Expo).

Social Networks don’t have this positive feedback loop that generates great swathes of data. While they do have network effects this is merely increasing the size social network by members rather than adding large amounts of data. We are even seeing indications now of limits to how far network effects work in maintaining growth of membership. The amount of data in social networks is relatively limited and most of this information is limited to who knows who and simple demographic data.

Social advertising is the “next big thing” in advertising. However, achieving this on a social network has not been easy. An outcome that is not surprising. The effectiveness of advertising comes down to two things: attention and intent. Attention being what is the person doing at the moment. Intent being why are they doing what they are doing at this time. The more closely you can determine the attention and intent of the user the better the advertising can be made to be of interest to the user.

Social Networks do not offer great data to determine attention and intent. Just because you are a 46 year-old climate researcher, does that determine why you are looking for a holiday? An advertiser could assume you are looking for a holiday for yourself but there is no evidence for this. Nor can a social network really say whether you are looking for holiday in the first place. There is little data to indicate attention and intent. Communities on the other hand do offer good data for determining attention and intent. Consider the climate researcher. He joins a community around travel and holidays and asks the question of the community “what is a good holiday as a birthday present for my 16 year old daughter?” Now we know attention (searching for a holiday) and intent (as a present for his 16 year old daughter). Having this data allows the advertiser to very accurately target with information about holidays suitable for a 16-year old girl.

People like being part of a community. We are tribal at heart. A social network is a mathematical abstraction that merely indicates a connection. The tribe will always win over the maths. Communities will win over social networks.

Tags: Tim O'Reilly, Social Networks, Hugh Macleod, Social Object, Community, Data Inside, Attention and Intent, Facebook, Wesabe

Mobilty, Facebook, Twitter and Social Cohesion

The Economist has an interesting article about mobility and its effect on society. In particular one anecdote of a plumber and a sociologist had a strong resonance.

"Richard Ling, a sociologist at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telephone company, and author of “New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion”, was standing on his porch in Oslo one day, saying farewell to a few guests, when a plumber walked around the corner, talking on his mobile phone to what appeared to be his wife. Mr Ling, who had a leak in the kitchen, was expecting him. But the plumber took Mr Ling and his guests aback by walking right past them and into the house, where he took off his shoes and headed for the kitchen, chattering into his handset all the while."

The article goes on to talk about weak and strong social interactions. In this case the plumbers weak social interaction with the sociologist was overcome by the stronger interaction between the plumber and his wife. Or it could easily be the girl at the checkout counter chatting away to someone on their mobile phone while barely paying attention to the task of paying for their shopping. The anecdotes are there and very strong.

Now that strong social interactions are rarely limited by distance, they are easily overwhelming weak social interactions. But is this a problem? I think so. The weak social interactions are often with random people in every day life - bus drivers, commuters, shop assistants, doctors, police, people on the street, customers in a cafe - rather than with people we've selected as being a part of our "tribe". They are unlikely to be similar to us and this variety of social interaction helps us be less insular. In reading the article I was strongly reminded of one of my favourite quotes from Terry Pratchett.

"Individuals aren’t naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are... well....human beings."

The dominance of the stronger ties reduces the "Brownian" motion needed to make us human. This loss is what is disturbing about the "mobility" society. We are rapidly shutting out random acts of chance, of serendipity. Nor is it simply mobile phones. Social Networks such as Facebook also produce the same effect. Anything that promotes strong social interactions at the expense of weak ones are culpable.

Services such as Twitter and FriendFeed go towards promoting weak social interactions as a tweeter will not always "know" or have a previous strong social interaction with a follower. I do wonder, however, whether these virtual weak social interactions will again come to dominate over the face-to-face weak social interactions of every day lives.

Banning mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter is not an answer. These services and devices serve a strong purpose of facilitating communication and strengthening social ties. What we need to be aware of is the here and now. To recognise that at certain points the here and now of weak social interactions out weights strong social interactions.

Tags: Social Interactions, Mobile, The Economist, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed

Google App Engine is final leg of the strategy to disrupt social networks

With the announcement of Google App Engine and the resulting symphony (or cacophony) of conversation a lot has been said about cloud computing and Amazon's Web Services. For all the conversation not much has looked at the Facebook angel in detail.

Google App Engine strikes me less as a competitor to Amazon Web Services and more as the finial piece in the puzzle for creating a web-spanning social network. Google App Engine provides a place for applications to be built and hosted external to any social network. Coupled with Google's APIs for a users social network (the contact API), an identity mechanism (Google Accounts) and the OpenSocial APIs, everything that can be done in Facebook or any other social network can now be done by any application without having to be internal to any social network.

It is an innovative way of dealing with the issues of social networks by explicitly turning the web into a giant social network without walls.

Of course this will mean the very act of surfing could see you have a sheep tossed at you!

Tags: Google, Facebook, Google App Engine, Amazon,Amazon Web Services, Social Network, OpenSocial

Perpetual Analytics and policing Social Networks

In what is likely to create a MSM storm, MySpace has deleted profiles of 29,000 convicted sex offenders. As noted by Michael in his post the whole process is complicated by having the data stored in multiple databases. Which will lead louder calls to make on massive DB.

But is one massive DB (and all the problems this may entail) the only effective answer. No, I don't believe so. I think judicious use of perpetual analytics will deliver a more effective solution thatis better at respecting privacy than having one massive DB. The other advantage is that each social network could build on and contribute to the policing of SNS for sex offenders.

tags: Perpetual Analytics, Social Networks, MySpace

A brilliant but simple idea - SlideShare

The best ideas always are aren't they?

Today, Uzanto launched a second service called SlideShare. Essentially, it allows the user to take a already generated powerpoint or openoffice slide pack (doesn't seem to support Keynote yet although a help note says to export to PPT). The user can then share these slide packs with other users and embed them on other sites.



The embed is a flash movie making usable on a majority of social networking sites and viewable in most if not all browsers. The service seems to use Amazon's S3 service.

Just as YouTube has many similar competitors, I expect other presentation services to popup with a similar system. It will be interesting to see who wins. I expect SlideShare has a good start with a working service that is easily used that is compatible with a social networks and a majority of the web.

Tags: SlideShare, Web Services, Social Networks

Social Networks and Attention

I was at dinner with Howard Rheingold organised at the very last moment by Ian Forrester. It was a very good evening thoroughly enjoyed. But this post isn't about the actual dinner but a comment made by one of the attendees.

Discussion had turned to "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report." Then the comment was made "I watch 'The Daily Show' but not the 'Colbert Report' as I am sure with my social network that if there is something really funny on the 'Colbert Report', I will find out about it" or words to that effect.

The comment shows an interesting trend in managing attention. People are using their social networks to expand the amount of attention they have. By relying on different parts of your social network to pay attention for interesting items effectively expands the amount of attention a user has.

What is the impact of this? I'm not sure as I haven't had the chance to fully think the implications through. Top of the head is that it will complicate the monetisation of attention. It also indicates that making very general social networks profitable will not be easy. The better route is adding social networking features around a series of more focused websites. Shades of the old Geocites and AngelFire?

The other side of the coin is that this is an interesting adaptation by an individual to managing information overload.

Tags:Attention, Social Networks, Geek Dinners