The Social Graph Problem
Linc
OwnerDetroit Icrontian
On Friday, Brad Fitz posted an essay on his site that talks about "the social graph". A social graph is, very simply, a record of how people know each other. It's the foundation of sites like Facebook and MySpace, and it's very important to Digg, Twitter, and a host of others.
What Brad is proposing is an open source "social graph" that can be used by all sites across the web. If you're friends with someone on Facebook but not on Twitter, this is the missing piece that would alert you to that. It's about taking already-public information and making it easier to access so that you don't have to rebuild your social network on every new site you sign up for.
Maybe it's just the developer geek in me that likes the piece, but I hope the audience is wider than that. I think (hope?) this is one of those pieces that marks the start of something, much like the Jesse James Garrett essay that coalesced "Ajax" (referring to the technologies used to make slick application-like web pages) as a key term on the Web.
What Brad is proposing is an open source "social graph" that can be used by all sites across the web. If you're friends with someone on Facebook but not on Twitter, this is the missing piece that would alert you to that. It's about taking already-public information and making it easier to access so that you don't have to rebuild your social network on every new site you sign up for.
Maybe it's just the developer geek in me that likes the piece, but I hope the audience is wider than that. I think (hope?) this is one of those pieces that marks the start of something, much like the Jesse James Garrett essay that coalesced "Ajax" (referring to the technologies used to make slick application-like web pages) as a key term on the Web.
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