Relationship Discovery and Representation
hidePosting a 2x2 matrix is kind of a cop-out. While they are the friend of the analyst or consultant, its such a general and non-specific framework that it by itself contributes little -- but they can lead to interesting conversations. Recently I attended a conference where there was a group session used a matrix to invoke discussion very effectively.
Was going to write a big post about the below matrix. It does tease out some controversial issues. Instead, lets write it together. At some point next week, everything below the line, within reason, will be a post on Many-to-Many.
Open Post
Introducing the framework
The X axis of Implicit to Explicit is how relationships are represented. They Y axis of Designer Determined to User Controlled is how relationships are discovered.
contribute here
Top half
Bottom Half
The lower half of this matrix is where the action is. Both explicit and implicit cells have a lot of activity. Let's take blogging as implicit cell and the social networking service for the explicit cell:
The distinctions aren't as clear as you might think. There are aspects of blogging that are close to explicit such as the link to someone's blog. When you do that, you affiliate yourself with someone in public. A little like declaring a friend in a social networking service like Orkut. One advantage of the explicit network in an SNS is that you can focus on the people in your network and categorize your relationships in some ways (whatever is allowed in that space). The SNS is also set up to allow you to send messages to people in a particular group.
At first, it might appear that an advantage to blogging is that you don't have to publicly describe your relationships with people in a crude and static way. But then you realize that a link is pretty crude and is static. But you CAN put the link in context by having various groups of links like favorite blogs, blogroll, tech blogs.
Another point that makes these different - linking is tuuo a blog while the explicit relationships on SNS's are to people. You can blog about someone or their blog in a post. The correlate to that in SNS space is the testimonial perhaps. One difference - the testimonial is recorded in the person's profile. The blog post is recorded in chronological order. Technorati can pull all the posts about a blog together pretty quickly.
Both of these spaces: blogs and SNS are explicit in that they exist in a mutually verifiable way. There are written posts that are publicly available. There are friends lists and testimonials in the SNS space. I can go to these places and be reminded of the people I like. The RSS newsreader gives me another place to be reminded that functions better than an organized list of URL favorites because it shows me the latest posts.
Top-down Systems
Top-down Social Networking
Bottom-up Social Networking
Bottom-up Social Software
Borderline Examples
Spoke has both implicit and explicit features. In addition to the typical explict people connection capability, they also harvest your address books and old emails for implicit connections.
Shifts and Trends
The value derived from these networks vary greatly. Explicit bottom-up sites are largely used to discover relationships, whether for romantic or for business purposes. Their value lies in the progressive growth and extensiveness of the relationships explicity described, and are prone to rapid popularity changes. For example, as Friendster's popularity declined, Orkut's increased.
On the other hand, top down systems are not subject to these temporal shifts, and benefit from having a repository of data to mine to establish and define relationships. As that repository grows, the relationships described should increase in accuracy. Their risks exist in the inaccuracy of machine determined relationships with smaller data sets.
Issues Raised by Different Models
- Privacy --
Discussion about the post
Sections
Added different sections for the post to tease out contributions on 2004-04-26 15:40:23 GMT, Ross
Conversation Engines
Where would you position 'conversation engines' e.g. Caucus in this matrix? There is some structure, but users are free to create new topics, move posts, complete personal profiles and start side coversations - Denham
Since content comes before contact and relationships are not made explicit, would consider this Bottom-up social software, but not the best example of it, especially because their is less user control Ross
Sounds like we need another row for hybrids where you have some structure top-down but substantial bottom-up user contributions like as Denham says ability to move posts and start side conversations in addition to creating new topics. That row can go in another post perhaps? Janet
Shifts and Trends
Added text to Shifts and Trends. - Enoch
General thoughts
Can any system be "top-down"? For example, is there fundementally a difference between a CRM system in which all employees have to contribute when interacting with a client, or a similar requirement for each employee to post notes about a client interaction to a group blog? If there is a difference, might it be in the explicted data being captured and the relitive complexity/flexibility of that data more so than "top-down" vs. "bottom-up"? - Shannon
Should non-technical examples be included? For example, is there is similarity between alumni organizations, Fraternities/Sororities, or service organizations to some of the "bottom up" sites mentioned? In a historically "offline" manner, these types of groups, as well as other private clubs/organizations, have historically served as networking, matchmaking, common interest organizing groups - does considering them add anything to this discourse? - Shannon
IMHO the success of an online social network is when, spontaneously, this spawns an offline event. This is what flash mobs, Meetup try to achieve and, if you read carefully, also services like Tribe and Orkut give space for self-organised events. Considering the huge amount of social network software, there's a clear risk of implosion of this phenomenon, but those that managed to create offline groups will most likely survive. Gillo
Good point, Gillo. The number, quality and participation in online events could be viewed as measures of a vibrant online social network. Also, offline events create further connection in the online network as an outcome. Blogging, a bottom-up, implicit social network of sorts seems to produce that result: conferences, meet-ups, etc.. However, I've never gone to a blogging event since I started blogging a year ago and yet I feel very connected to the blogging community. There must be other measures of sns vibrancy besides spontaneous offline events. Vibrancy as a positive value that might be a conceptual measure that could be used to compare the 4 cells in the above matrix. Some of us bottom-up, emergence types would hypothesize that vibrancy would be much greater in the bottom half. Janet
One other comment about all this. I'm noticing that it's easy to write comments down here below the line rather than actually edit the article above it. As a blogger, this commenting thing is something I'm used to and comfortable with. I hope that braver souls or ones with more time than I have today will take some of this below the line stuff and use it as input to write something above that line. There are lots of headings up there with nothing filled in yet. Janet
Contributors
Put your name in square brackets to be recognized for your contribution
