Social networking explained by CommonCraft

Folks from CommonCraft did it again. This time, they aim at explaining social networking to peeps in plain English:



The main focus of the video is the exploration of the core idea in network theory: "your weak links are your strong connection." The video suggests that social networks make these weak relationship apparent. Unless these applications allow an easier way to explore your friends' friends, I don't think that it is that apparent.

It does point out an important feature that most social network lacks: a way to explore your 2nd degree of separation, and perhaps your third. LinkedIn tries to do that by allowing users to only see profiles from people within your cluster. Most people don't realize that: of the 375 connections I have had on LinkedIn, that has only happened to me once, which felt really awkward to me at first, but after a while it was apparent what they were trying to do. Still a bit awkward.

SML Thank You
I would like to thank Olivia Lin, a video extraordinaire that I've only met on Facebook for sending me this wonderful video. When I finally meet Olivia in person, she would become a few handful of people who belong in my Life 2.0 circles--something which I have been drafting in my mind but never got my acts together to write about!

Related SML Universe
+ SML Facebook
+ SML Flickr
+ SML Network
+ SML Twitter

SML Copyright Notice
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.