So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to improve social networking sites.
Most human relationships, and networks of relationships, are really complex. The problem with (most, if not all) social networking sites is that they don’t take this into account when designing their product. They over simplify things, and it is to our detriment as a user.
For one thing, why do most social networks only have one level of relationship? You are either my friend or you are not. And there is no ground in the middle. It’s an all or nothing system. As my friend, you get access to everything. If you aren’t my friend, you get access to nothing. There are some exceptions (Facebook also adds options for regional or organizational networks into the mix, and Live Journal lets you set up custom group filters within your friends list), but mostly it’s a binary system.
But real-world relationships aren’t like that. You meet someone at a bar, or through a friend — and they aren’t a stranger anymore, but they probably aren’t your friend yet. But online, when you meet someone through a friend, you have to add them as your friend to keep track of them within your network. So what happens is that we end up with a huge list of friends that aren’t really our friends at all. And that dilutes the usefulness of the social network, because now you are keeping track of a whole bunch of people you don’t really know.
I propose a multi-tiered system that each user can specify themselves. Have as many degrees of friendship as you want, and let each degree have as much or little access as you want them to. The “friend” system was fine when social networking was just for fun — but a lot of us actually manage our social circles and lives on these sites, and that requires finer shade control.
Another thing is that I have a lot of different groups of friends, and I don’t necessarily want them all to see the same things about me. Not that I hide who I am, but it can lead to interesting dilemmas. Say, I want to leave work early on a Friday afternoon to go to happy hour with a friend. Well, I can’t really plan the outing, or mention that I am going to do that (or did to that), or post the photos from it, on my Facebook page because several people I work with and my boss are all my Facebook friends. (Note to my boss: this is just an example!)
There are some things that are entirely appropriate for one group of friends, and entirely inappropriate for another. So why can’t I have different profiles to go with my different groups of friends? Why can’t I group all my work friends and let them see one profile, all my drinking buddies in another, all my sorority sisters in another, and so on?
If online (or online & mobile, or just mobile) social networks are really going to help us manage (or simply replace) our real world relationships, they have to be as complex as our relationships are.
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