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I think you have to think of this utility in terms of how the two social graphs are different. The Facebook social graph is established by people you meet in p

I think you have to think of this utility in terms of how the two social graphs are different. The Facebook social graph is established by people you meet in person and who decide later to send you a friend invite, or people you knew at some point who saw your picture on someone else's friends list. The strength of the connection is determined by Facebook based on how often you interact with or stalk that person. The Gmail social graph is people you actually communicate with, and is more dynamic in the sense that you probably communicate with more people on a day-to-day basis then you interact/stalk with on Fb. The question is, which of these makes for a more relevant following system, and for what kind of user? Perhaps one way to think of it is that people who are all about sharing pictures will prefer Fb, but those who are all about sharing ideas will prefer Buzz. Which target demographic has more income?

tokenadult 17y ago
Perhaps one way to think of it is that people who are all about sharing pictures will prefer Fb, but those who are all about sharing ideas will prefer Buzz. Which target demographic has more income? A very good question. That's about what I'm thinking as I consider making Buzz my primary channel for interacting with my friends. I'm considering "ideas" more than "income," but I'm not looking for games or cute pictures. AFTER EDIT: As I just posted on Facebook, in a thread discussing the New York Times article about Buzz, "rebuilding a whole social graph is a bother. But MIGRATING a social graph to a site that is at least as useful and less annoying might be something much easier to do. I am glad to see some thoughtful competition in this space, the better to kee Facebook honest." I see some other comments on my Facebook threads and here on HN along the lines of using Facebook to first establish a network of friends, and then using the Next Great Thing in Social Networking to winnow that group of friends to get a dense network of closest friends. That might work for me.
HelenL14 17y ago
That's an interesting way of looking at it, but you're still talking about "preference" of one over the other. Unless there's a new tool out there that can integrate everything for me, (even if I prefer FB/Buzz/Twitter/etc.) I'll still probably use all of them for those precise separate reasons. I think it'd be interesting to see how many NEW social network users Buzz will bring in, just because of the simple fact that it makes setting up a brand new network easy as pie (vs FB and having to build up to a nice little community of friends).

tokenadult 17y ago

Perhaps one way to think of it is that people who are all about sharing pictures will prefer Fb, but those who are all about sharing ideas will prefer Buzz. Which target demographic has more income? A very good question. That's about what I'm thinking as I consider making Buzz my primary channel for interacting with my friends. I'm considering "ideas" more than "income," but I'm not looking for games or cute pictures. AFTER EDIT: As I just posted on Facebook, in a thread discussing the New York Times article about Buzz, "rebuilding a whole social graph is a bother. But MIGRATING a social graph to a site that is at least as useful and less annoying might be something much easier to do. I am glad to see some thoughtful competition in this space, the better to kee Facebook honest." I see some other comments on my Facebook threads and here on HN along the lines of using Facebook to first establish a network of friends, and then using the Next Great Thing in Social Networking to winnow that group of friends to get a dense network of closest friends. That might work for me.

HelenL14 17y ago

That's an interesting way of looking at it, but you're still talking about "preference" of one over the other. Unless there's a new tool out there that can integrate everything for me, (even if I prefer FB/Buzz/Twitter/etc.) I'll still probably use all of them for those precise separate reasons. I think it'd be interesting to see how many NEW social network users Buzz will bring in, just because of the simple fact that it makes setting up a brand new network easy as pie (vs FB and having to build up to a nice little community of friends).