Social Networks as any other abstraction undergoes continuous evolution. In this post I tried to analyze gaps that are common to current social network projects and what
"Must Haves" should be introduced by software industry to bring them to the next level.
So here I came with three major areas I have identified:
Cycle
Current implementation of
connection is flat. All connections are treated with the same level of trust, which is not always true in the real life. In real life we communicate with the different people differently based on the level of trust and proximity we have. For example, everybody has close friends, social friends, people we know, or just friend of friends we met once, etc. So when we post message it becomes public to the whole network. Although there is way to restrict recipients by using groups, but they are not useful for day-to-day communication when jokes are shared with everybody, achievements with people I really know, and some secrets with couple of close buddies.
The problem can be easily solved by introducing
Cycles of Friends. Imagine for each connection in your network you can define proximity. This can allow to easily point to the most far outer cycle that is allowed to see post, assuming the all connections of inner cycles will see it as well (as people maintaining higher trust level).
Angle
But just the cycle does not completely solve the issue of addressing message to the right group of recipients. In real life each person maintains different angles of communication. For example I can share a dirty jokes with my neighbor but I will never include him into the discussion of my new project.
Reciprocally the same person can be a part of different cycles depending on angle. It can be a close beer buddy so I will include him into discussion where to party. However the same person can be in outer cycle when I speak about business.
Angles are currently exist in the form of different social networks. LinkedIn is usually used for business connections while Facebook for more social communications. Yelp and FourSquare covers social aspects with focus on real places.
Memory
Memory - is simple but needed feature. Message in the social network has some life span - the same as conversation in real life. Some messages (e.g. jokes) has a life time from couple of hours to maximum a day. Discussion of some hot news can last couple of days, discussion around event usually last until this event actually take place and probably some time after. More serious topics can last for months. Because all communication comes to the same basket, short-term messages create to much noise, so that more important staff got lost.
So memory can let message silently disappear from the list when it's not actual anymore.
