If Facebook could roll in degrees of separation, it'd be interesting. What about adding an "is this person important to me" web service for email. For example

If Facebook could roll in degrees of separation, it'd be interesting. What about adding an "is this person important to me" web service for email. For example-- I get an unsolicited email via Gmail. Gmail looks at the sender, pings Facebook's social graph to determine if I know the person or happen to be a degree or two of separation away. Voila-- a foil for spam and a tool to allow you the ability to sort email based on social "proximity". Of course, the social graph isn't new. Gmail has a pretty good read on the Social graph. Not as much explicit relationships, but it could determine relationship strength by frequency and size of correspondence. Facebook has a good start, though I think they have a long road before they have enough data (especially among older generations) to be useful.