| “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” Actually, Zuck, that has nothing to do with integrity. I would hope to hell that there are things that you feel comfortable saying around some people that you don't feel comfortable saying around other people. I completely agree with the writer. By having this "all people must act the same to everyone else at all times" mantra coming down from the top, they are ripe to be overtaken by another product that simply has at its core the exact opposite philosophy. There ARE ways to split people in to groups based just on the social graph. Of course, you need a very large and almost complete social graph in order for this type of clustering to be accurate. I'm a huge fan of the linear algebraic techniques used in network analysis. There is definitely a way to have most of the hard work done algorithmically, presenting the user with an analysis of his own social network, lumping people in to suggested groups, for example. It wouldn't work 100%, as no algorithm is going to properly be able to handle the subtle nuances of a given individuals rationale for grouping people together, but it could get very, very close. You could add further inputs to the clustering mechanism by taking in to account each node's own reclassification of its social groups. Run the algorithm, give all the users a generated list of social groups, and as each user updates and fixes the lists, re-input those updates in to the clustering algorithm. By giving the nodes in the graph an opinion, the algorithm could be refined and made to be more accurate when there are future changes to the graph. Oh the weeks of fun I could have with access to Facebook's social graph... |