The Social Graph is not a graph

A graph is static representation with no concept of real-time. It is the balance sheet of finance, a snap shot. Real-life relationships are a complex mix of history, memory, values and now – they are not a single connection and time cannot express the value.

The Social Graph is not Social

Social needs “signals” not comments/ opinions/ likes or tweets and the ability to fade

So what model do we need?

Do we need a perfect model of what we already have (a digital version of life) or do we want some value.  The value today is “staying in touch” the value for a business may be “improving decision making” but what is the next value for the digital engaged citizens given that it is not Facebook or G+.   If the value or a mobile phone has changed from where it started…. where next for my social graph?

Pew Research found that’s the “major reason” given by six of every 10 users of Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn is “staying in touch.” And half of the people surveyed said the ability to reconnect with old friends played a “significant role” in using social networking.

Other key findings include:

– Only 11 percent of Twitter users said the major reason they used the microblogging service was to follow celebrities or politicians.

– People ages 50 to 64 were more likely to use social networking sites to connect to others with a common hobby or interest.

– Only 3 percent said they used social networks to find romantic partners.

There is a great article here about Gerrit Visser who has been digitally curating content since “just after the internet was invented” in 1996.

Quoting

“I think the curator (not the strategist) will have four main roles:

1. Searching, filtering and selecting content to become a taste-maker for the target audience.
2. Providing curatorial leadership to help other workers within an organization understand what makes valuable content for the brand — so they can be enlisted to create and maintain content based on these evolving criteria.
3. Spotting trends, and feeding these to the strategists who will use them to help define future direction.
4. Distributing — identifying channels and fine-tuning them.”

Looks a lot like what I try to achieve here at blog/My Digital Footprint and I massively depend on recommendations and comments from others …..

Source: http://www.openbible.info/blog/2011/10/applying-sentiment-analysis-to-the-bible/

If the web is a "Social" something then this equals Facebook, Xing, Twitter, LinkedIn Google+. 

But social could mean....

"see what your friends are searching, buying, watching, liking, saying or doing"

"buy together and recommend

"filtered by who you know"

"what's trending"

"where are my friends right now or where will they be"

Given that a social graph is a digital map that says, "This is who I know." It may reflect people who the user knows in various ways: as family members, work colleagues, peers met at a conference, high school classmates, fellow cycling club members, friend of a friend, etc. Social graphs are mostly created on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, where users send reciprocal invites to those they know, in order to map out and maintain their social ties.

And an interest graph is a digital map that says, "This is what I like." As Twitter's CEO has remarked, if you see that I follow the San Francisco Giants on Twitter, that doesn't tell you if I know the team's players, but it does tell you a lot about my interest in baseball. Interest graphs are generated by the feeds customers follow (e.g. on Twitter), products they buy (e.g. on Amazon), ratings they create (e.g. on Netflix), searches they run (e.g. on Google), or questions they answer about their tastes (e.g. on services like Hunch).

However where is the value? It has to be in the mashup/ combination of all social data so I can determine who influences you and who you influence -  where is your power and how much you are worth to a brand.......