Social Networking under fire now??

By Rajesh Setty on Sat 04 Jun 2005, 8:50 AM – Leave Comment

Robert Scoble talks about the problem with social networking and also provides a link to the CNET.com article Five reasons social networking doesn’t work.

There was so much of buzz and hype about Social Networking in the last couple of years. My take on this issue.

Social networking is a really cool concept and it works great if used

right. In a nutshell, Social networking is the technology

implementation of “six degrees of separation.” You can reach anyone

else in the world in six hops. While this may be true, trying to

exactly replicate it and think that it will work may be asking for too

much. Let me explain. Take a look below

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6

Let’s say #2 wants to reach #6 and the introduction request reaches #4.

It’s a tricky situation for #4 as neither he knows #2 directly nor he

knows #6 directly. But the request came from someone he knows very

well. My take in this scenario – most of the times, the request will

stall and won’t move. It will also put a strain on the relationship

between #3 and #4.

One simple way to overcome this is to create a rule that you will only

connect people who are directly connected to you. For instance, if #3

wants to connect with #5 and the request comes along to #4, it should

be a “no brainer”

I think the jury is still out on this. More on this a few days later.

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