“Social Network”: from “friend-list” to “working group”

In the previous article “Social network: an attempt to define”, the concept of “social network” was formulated through its technical embodiment: “social relations management system”. It is not right. Still, it is impossible to substitute the "social network" as a specific phenomenon of the Internet with other concepts - a web service, a tool. The phenomenon is wider than the technical means embodying it. Let's try to correct the error. The path of knowledge always goes from the casual to the essential, from the obvious to that which can only be seen with effort.

First of all, first I would like to note that a social network is first and foremost the people who form it; people who express themselves, communicate, create . Remember this and we will keep all the time in my head. What for? Then, because we are not engaged in sociological research, we are interested in practical application, i.e. just technical tools to help build a social network on the Internet. But in order to build something, you need to know what exactly to build and for what purpose, you should not confuse the cart with the horse. Speaking of web services, we must remember the reason for their origin.

The peculiarity of the new Web is in the transformation of the mass Internet user from a passive anonymous contemplator to an active public participant. The author / reader difference is more and more dissolved in the complicity of both parties. And partners and form their local social network. The initial form of the existence of partners was the e-mail address book of all respondents. But this information is protected, so to speak, by “secret personal correspondence”. Publicly, the accomplices began to exist as a friend-list or a network of friends of “my (by) readers”.
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The Internet audience was supposed to ripen for public disclosure of their data and even more so their contacts. Social network rests on the publicity of its members. Successful one who does not hide anything. A new person is a kind of “open man”. Do fame and money no longer interest the new man? If he doesn’t hide anything, how can he take advantage of all this for himself? Of course, the desire for fame and money is not lost. Only a new person is now convinced that he will be successful in person only if the team is successful, i.e. as a member of the network. Only “collective intelligence” and “collective labor” offer advantages in the modern dynamic world. To be effective, the friend list must be replaced by a working group. A simple exchange of comments - the means of collective work.

What does all this mean regarding the technical implementation of the designated human needs? The preliminary definition was: “social relations management system” is a web service that provides a group of people who have shown interest in a particular subject area, means of interpersonal communication and changes in this subject area. ” Continuing to explore social services, it was found that we did not notice the elephant - it is necessary to add to this definition.

A web service designed to build a social network must have controls for user properties. Actually, public information about the user, which we do not like to fill out when registering and happily avoid, becomes the cornerstone of the whole building called “social network” on the Internet. But this should not be just a description of a loved one - the description should be turned into functional attributes, i.e. in the values ​​of certain DB fields. The more detailed the database, the better for the network. Therefore, a property should be added to the definition: management of the description of the subject or the means of participant's self-identification .

But that is not all. Such a service should have the ability to manage relationships between subjects, network participants, i.e. It is necessary to add the fourth property: management of the nature of communication between network participants .

These two properties of social services are, in fact, the first in value than the two previously mentioned: means of communication between subjects and means of changing the subject area.

Let's change the original - "social relations management system" - to "social network formation system". The final definition: “a social network formation system” is a web service that provides a group of people who have publicly shown interest in a specific subject area, with the means: 1) user attribute identification; 2) control the nature of communication between network participants; 3) interpersonal communication and 4) changes, descriptions of the subject area " .

This is the maximum, i.e. This is a social network developed to the "working group".

How can knowledge of a theoretical definition in practice help us? Everyone decides for himself. I can offer one of the options: definition is the perfect image for a real product. If the emergence of social networks is the global trend of Internet development, then, knowing the goal, you can build a path for the development of your project from the existing state and properties to the desired.

Consider, for example, growth points for the My Circle web service. It seems that this is definitely a universally recognized tool for creating social networks. Let us analyze the properties of this service according to the above definition. What do we get?

1) Means of self-identification is, detailed. This is a huge plus.
2) The nature of the relationship of the participants of the service is - three circles of acquaintances. There are public relations.
3) Interpersonal communication through the service is, however, caused a very negative reaction when used. Good intentions to protect the participant from spammers turned into an electronic secretary, protecting the cherished door with his chest. Why am I given the opportunity to send one message even to people from my first circle? There are no such restrictions on toodoo . Because of this, I now have the opportunity to participate in the work of Internet.Ru , and if the negotiations went on one message per day? ..
4) There are many subject areas that lead to a sense of chaos. It is not clear why to use all this and how to use it effectively? This confusion of subject areas gives rise to bewilderment: what kind of network will I build here: classmates, colleagues, interest group, or employment? There are obviously several networks here. Another disadvantage is that there are no developed means for working in these subject areas.

Conclusion: “My Circle” is a mix of social networks at the friend list level, not the working group. We wish the developers successful and targeted growth.

Another example is free-lance .ru .

1) There is a summary, portfolio, but a general description, and not as attributes of the database.
2) The nature of the relationship of participants in the service - the employer / performer. No member / participant or employer / team connections. The relationship between the participants is not fixed for the system, therefore communication is inconvenient to trace. There is a publicity.
3) Interpersonal communication is quite comfortable.
4) The subject area is an order. For the participants, they made their own cabinet: there are applications, contacts, ratings, reviews, portfolios. Created means for promotion throughout the chain from order to order, i.e. controls the subject area.

Conclusion: free-lance .ru is not a social network, but a personal office. This resource can become a social network of the “working group” level.

Interesting conclusions can be obtained by analyzing other types of web projects on these 4 properties: LiveJournal community, thematic portal, Wikipedia, various search engines. Let's try to find the difference between Googl`om and Yandex?