Comments on: Sometimes It IS About The Technology http://blog.steffanantonas.com/sometimes-it-is-about-the-technology.htm Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:18:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Steffan Antonas http://blog.steffanantonas.com/sometimes-it-is-about-the-technology.htm/comment-page-1#comment-2673 Steffan Antonas Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:29:46 +0000 http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=1605#comment-2673 @Tony - I think that solving the problem of making people feel instantly<br>well connected ragardless of when they join a social network is both a<br>design challenge (you can improve it) and an issue of human nature (you have<br>to understand how people connect). I think Facebook actually has a much<br>better handle on how people actually connect in real life and how to connect<br>you quickly when you join. While email is a social network and there's a lot<br>of evidence that could back up the theory that the people you communicate<br>with the most are the people you know the best, it leads to some problems -<br>What if I email people I work with a lot but don't like? What if I use my<br>gmail for work (a lot of startups do)? What if someone emailed their ex the<br>most in the past 6 months but just broke up with them and doesn't want to<br>have contact? There's no context for the relationship there - only a<br>communication volume. A lot of people had a problem with that in finding<br>contacts. Facebook tends to find people who are connected to people who are<br>connected to you and surfacing the clusters for you in recommendations. That<br>seems to work a lot better.<br><br>I haven't gotten into buzz too much because none of my close friends are<br>into it. We don't email anymore - we Facebook. That's another problem...when<br>you use something OTHER than email to do all your primary communication with<br>friends and family, Google's not so good at finding who you really care<br>about.<br><br>Thoughts on this? @Tony – I think that solving the problem of making people feel instantly
well connected ragardless of when they join a social network is both a
design challenge (you can improve it) and an issue of human nature (you have
to understand how people connect). I think Facebook actually has a much
better handle on how people actually connect in real life and how to connect
you quickly when you join. While email is a social network and there's a lot
of evidence that could back up the theory that the people you communicate
with the most are the people you know the best, it leads to some problems -
What if I email people I work with a lot but don't like? What if I use my
gmail for work (a lot of startups do)? What if someone emailed their ex the
most in the past 6 months but just broke up with them and doesn't want to
have contact? There's no context for the relationship there – only a
communication volume. A lot of people had a problem with that in finding
contacts. Facebook tends to find people who are connected to people who are
connected to you and surfacing the clusters for you in recommendations. That
seems to work a lot better.

I haven't gotten into buzz too much because none of my close friends are
into it. We don't email anymore – we Facebook. That's another problem…when
you use something OTHER than email to do all your primary communication with
friends and family, Google's not so good at finding who you really care
about.

Thoughts on this?

]]> By: Tony Haenn http://blog.steffanantonas.com/sometimes-it-is-about-the-technology.htm/comment-page-1#comment-2672 Tony Haenn Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:47:24 +0000 http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=1605#comment-2672 Steffan -<br>You hit on one of the big reasons the "middle" has such trouble with the new social networks: it's really hard to build meaningful engagement in a network where either 1) your friends haven't yet signed up or 2) the noise from everyone else makes it really hard to have meaningful engagement.<br><br>Do you think it's a design flaw (and therefore fixable) or something that is a deeper structural problem with the way the newest social networks (twitter, buzz, et al) are established?<br><br>What I really like about Buzz is the integration with my email contacts. It's enabled me to build a network organically of the people I already email with and I'm friends with. However, my friends are not alpha geeks :-) So it has been a little quiet for me on Buzz. My guess though, is Buzz has the right way forward in terms of establishing networks. I think most of the mass adopter crowd is more interested in strengthening ties with people they already know, rather than people they don't know.<br><br>-Tony Steffan -
You hit on one of the big reasons the “middle” has such trouble with the new social networks: it's really hard to build meaningful engagement in a network where either 1) your friends haven't yet signed up or 2) the noise from everyone else makes it really hard to have meaningful engagement.

Do you think it's a design flaw (and therefore fixable) or something that is a deeper structural problem with the way the newest social networks (twitter, buzz, et al) are established?

What I really like about Buzz is the integration with my email contacts. It's enabled me to build a network organically of the people I already email with and I'm friends with. However, my friends are not alpha geeks :-) So it has been a little quiet for me on Buzz. My guess though, is Buzz has the right way forward in terms of establishing networks. I think most of the mass adopter crowd is more interested in strengthening ties with people they already know, rather than people they don't know.

-Tony

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