Comments on: Social Networks can’t be Bootstrapped

By: fred

fred — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:52:00 +0000

Uno and Tom – JKD nails bootstrapping in comment 5. I am talking about the very real possbility Google will simply turn on social with iGoogle. Look how they did it with Reader?

The problem is (as with all things social), contextual. Google can take my contact lists (my Gmail connections, etc) and bootstrap a rich network immediately. But sharing my “google experience” isn’t the context I have with these people. I will need to establish this context first, before I start sharing.

And to Jackson, as always I can’t disagree with you. Great points, and lets hope that Google makes the right decisions on this leap forward.

By: jkd

jkd — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:53:00 +0000

"Not sure I understand your comment, "Of course, pre-populated contact lists are the death of meaningful social experience""

I think what Fred is saying is that a fully-filled-out contact list - by circumventing the (re)discovery period of early, exciting activity in a mediated social context, takes away one of the most pleasurable aspects of the medium. I happen to agree - how much fun is Facebook now, or was Friendster circa 2005, etc. It's the finding that's entertaining - but it's also the finding that helps you redefine your social context as you go through life and different circumstances. Especially for young people, a pre-populated SNS contact list including people you used to talk with three years ago might be exactly the wrong social context to recreate.

By: Uno de Waal

Uno de Waal — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:47:00 +0000

I’m not sure if I would call it “bootstrapping”. To me that term refers to quickly getting something off the ground, using any means possible, and probably in a startup environment.

I actually do think SNS’s can be bootstrapped – not Facebook, but a very dumbed down one at least.

Google has already started with a small migration like that – it’s in your Google Reader contacts, (Friends shared items). That’s your contact list being portable right there. Naturally it’s only Google addresses at the moment, but I don’t think users have been very against opening that up.

By: Tom Krieglstein

Tom Krieglstein — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:49:00 +0000

Not sure I understand your comment, “Of course, pre-populated contact lists are the death of meaningful social experience”

When I enter a new room, I would love to know first who I am closest in association too. Then from there use that a foundation with which to expand out from.

By: Jackson Fox

Jackson Fox — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:15:00 +0000

Why do this? Because it makes Google part of the social app ecosystem. Given the walled-garden tendencies in that area, it makes sense for them to provide an alternative platform. Isnt this why they started OpenSocial in the first place?

I already use iGoogle as my primary activity dashboard, mostly through RSS feeds. Integrating the OpenSocial platform just makes this easier for developers.

By: jkd

jkd — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:34:00 +0000

I agree that a SNS can’t be bootstrapped, but maybe it can be brute-forced. You say “If they simply want to introduce social features for publicity, they stand to poison a key product” and that’d be right if iGoogle were a standalone product – as most people think it is. But as you also point out, it isn’t. Google knows us better than we know ourselves, in terms of our online identities. I ultimately don’t think they will do so, but there’s really nothing stopping them from rolling out an automatically-populated SNS via a “Yes/No” radio button the next time every Google[Product] user logs in. The only question is, why do it? They already have a massive portion of the personal information of the largest social network out there – the Internet.