4 ms·

Clay Shirky describes that online communities have a natural life cycle in which they start off small and vibrant and then dissipate as they grow larger. The pe

by Jd 18y ago

Clay Shirky describes that online communities have a natural life cycle in which they start off small and vibrant and then dissipate as they grow larger. The perpetual problem is to achieve a persistent high signal to noise ratio. I suggest that a platform which allows persons to independently form communities around common interests (when then could generate their own news feed or journal) will allow new group formation and allow each group to control what is or is not an acceptable signal to noise ratio in their group. For instance, 'Nuclear Physicist News' might not resemble 'Hacker News,' might not resemble 'Recent findings in Biotechnology.' But all of those groups should be able to exist, fail, and be formed again on a single platform. What makes the platform part important is that my single identity carries through all of the different groups I participate in, allowing me to participate in (and read) more groups, more easily. In some ways this might be better described as a protocol than a platform and it could theoretically exist in either form. Part of the reason I want to communicate with persons more technically gifted than I is about whether or not this would exist better distributed over many servers with only a single unified protocol (..ML) or like facebook/your-favorite-social-networking-site-here. Here's a restatement of the problem: social networking sites do not currently facilitate high level discussion.

owkaye 18y ago
I suggest that a platform which allows persons to independently form communities around common interests (when then could generate their own news feed or journal) will allow new group formation and allow each group to control what is or is not an acceptable signal to noise ratio in their group. It almost seems like you've never heard of Yahoo Groups.
physcab 18y ago
Ok so you want to develop some "high quality" social network then. Why not just create one on Ning? Ning allows you to create your own social network. And so what if you create this "high quality" social network. What is the added-value that someone cannot get through personal messaging, forums, e-mail, and current social networks. You also talked about integrating your own identity. How is this different than MyspaceID, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, and Open ID? These services allow you to be interconnected so that your reputation and presence among other social networks is constant. Lastly, I believe we're going to see a transformation of social networks. I agree with that part of your initial statement. But this transformation will arise from a gap in a practical need. You have not fully convinced me that there is a gap. So just to give you some brief, unsolicited advice, I would say that you should look for problems that you encounter in your daily life, and create some tool to fix them. If its important enough, then your userbase will follow. I would also research all the different types of social networks and how they currently function, especially from a technical point of view. You tend to throw a lot of technical jargon around. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you have to be clear about your terminology. For example, when you mention "signal-to-noise" ratio, I think gaussian noise and signal processing. :)
- Jd 18y ago
  I have also compiled a list of all currently existing social networks and their shortcomings, but did not include that in this post. The problems of the academic, related to journal publication, etc., are problems I face in my everyday life. I suspect if there is not interest here I will eventually address them from inside an academic institution. In any case, thanks for the exchange. I'm willing to share more details privately, even if all they do is spur someone else to create an improvement in current methods for information distribution.
nostrademons 18y ago
A bunch of existing social-networking sites already let groups form, split, and die off as necessary. LiveJournal, Yahoo Groups, FaceBook & MySpace (people really just talk to their friends on FaceBook, it's not one monolithic community), Ning, and Reddit now that they have user-created subreddits. Come to think of it, that includes just about every really successful site. Being able to fragment the community seems like a prerequisite to having a scalable social networking site.

by Jd 18y ago

owkaye 18y ago

I suggest that a platform which allows persons to independently form communities around common interests (when then could generate their own news feed or journal) will allow new group formation and allow each group to control what is or is not an acceptable signal to noise ratio in their group. It almost seems like you've never heard of Yahoo Groups.

physcab 18y ago

Ok so you want to develop some "high quality" social network then. Why not just create one on Ning? Ning allows you to create your own social network. And so what if you create this "high quality" social network. What is the added-value that someone cannot get through personal messaging, forums, e-mail, and current social networks. You also talked about integrating your own identity. How is this different than MyspaceID, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, and Open ID? These services allow you to be interconnected so that your reputation and presence among other social networks is constant. Lastly, I believe we're going to see a transformation of social networks. I agree with that part of your initial statement. But this transformation will arise from a gap in a practical need. You have not fully convinced me that there is a gap. So just to give you some brief, unsolicited advice, I would say that you should look for problems that you encounter in your daily life, and create some tool to fix them. If its important enough, then your userbase will follow. I would also research all the different types of social networks and how they currently function, especially from a technical point of view. You tend to throw a lot of technical jargon around. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you have to be clear about your terminology. For example, when you mention "signal-to-noise" ratio, I think gaussian noise and signal processing. :)

Jd 18y ago
I have also compiled a list of all currently existing social networks and their shortcomings, but did not include that in this post. The problems of the academic, related to journal publication, etc., are problems I face in my everyday life. I suspect if there is not interest here I will eventually address them from inside an academic institution. In any case, thanks for the exchange. I'm willing to share more details privately, even if all they do is spur someone else to create an improvement in current methods for information distribution.

nostrademons 18y ago

A bunch of existing social-networking sites already let groups form, split, and die off as necessary. LiveJournal, Yahoo Groups, FaceBook & MySpace (people really just talk to their friends on FaceBook, it's not one monolithic community), Ning, and Reddit now that they have user-created subreddits. Come to think of it, that includes just about every really successful site. Being able to fragment the community seems like a prerequisite to having a scalable social networking site.