What Social Networks Lack: Context
When I heard about Google+ I was excited. Well, excited is an understatement. I was elated. Finally, my favorite company on the internet was stepping into the social networking realm. I requested an invite no less than 10 times, and when one of our co-ops at my company gave me the coveted invite, I stopped the world to melt with Google+.
When I got there, I was, frankly, underwhelmed. All this talk I'd heard about circles made me think that Google was about to introduce a different aspect of relationship modeling than the standard Facebook friend list. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is very little difference. What's worse is that all of my friends are on Facebook. Few of my friends are on Google+. Most of my content for the past four years is on Facebook, and I've got only 1 post of Google+. So to rebuild all that hard work and effort wasn't appealing to me. As a result, I visit my Google+ page about as often as a rich brat visits their elderly parents in a nursing home.
So I'm writing this to communicate to both Facebook and Google+ what I'd like to see in the future regarding lists (circles).
I think a friend list (circle) should be designed like concentric circles where I'm on the inner most circle, and access to my profile is based upon how close the contact is to me. People on a given level of circle are given context around my relationship with the other people in that circle.
Imagine if my best friend from college, my best friend from high school, and my best friend from work are all on the same level. A particular friend could see the other two friends and understand how they connect to me. Then, given my interactions with each of those friends, a person on the same level could see key words or topics that commonly come up in my conversations with the others. It would be awesome if they could click a keyword and see conversations that I had with others in that circle on the specific topic.
Through my page, people who are not friends with each other, but are connected by me, could have a conversation with each other, especially if there are strong similarities between their relationships with me, and ultimately foster a new connection. My friends from different parts of my life could become friends.
Over time, these concentric conversations form knowledge about me, equipped with its own inside jokes and stories that are unique for that level of friendship. As I introduce a new person into my circle, not only do they get context from key words, but they get a digest of what we've talked about over time to catch them up on what's going on.
When I look my friends' pages, I'm only exposed to content appropriate for the level they have me set to, and topics that are most relevant to my activity are highlighted to encourage me to comment.
When I look at a circle, I can see an overview of what's going on with my friends all at the same time and I can filter based upon a particular friend. I could see, based upon my high school friend, what relevance the posts I have access to from my work and college friends are compatible with him. This becomes less about the status updates, and more about how the friends I've selected relate not just to me, but to each other, as well.
I'd like to think that this method of modeling a friendship creates, over time, relationships between people that even though they never met, they feel like they know each other.
That's the potential power of a social network.
THAT'S what I thought Google+ would be and what I hope Facebook will become.
So that's it. The first shot across the bow of the two biggest players in social networking. I encourage conversation on this idea because I truly believe this is the next step in social networking.
Ryan Smith
luminousblue
an idea guy
