Comments on: Why on-line email and IM systems ain’t social graphs http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs Digital Lifestyle Aggregation - helping to establish open source infrastructure Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:11:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Melinda Messenger http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243513 Melinda Messenger Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:47:49 +0000 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243513 Hi...Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Friday . Hi…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Friday .

]]> By: Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Maybe Email IS social media http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243399 Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Maybe Email IS social media Sat, 17 Nov 2007 16:53:16 +0000 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243399 [...] I posted a retort to Fred Wilson almost giddy extrapolation of the numbers of email systems out there today and how they dwarf the existing social networks - in terms of size of the ’so-called’ social graphs.  I called it “Why email and IM systems ain’t social networks” (don’t you just LOVE my candid use of vernacular?  [...] […] I posted a retort to Fred Wilson almost giddy extrapolation of the numbers of email systems out there today and how they dwarf the existing social networks - in terms of size of the ’so-called’ social graphs.  I called it “Why email and IM systems ain’t social networks” (don’t you just LOVE my candid use of vernacular?  […]

]]> By: Julian Bond http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243385 Julian Bond Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:50:02 +0000 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243385 When we were talking about FOAF, I remember suggesting an application that exported your IM Contacts as a FOAF file. Same for your Outlook address file. Both of those ideas suggest to me that there is Social Graph information hidden in both IM and Email. Which then raises the question of Plaxo. They are aggregating Social Graph information from Email. They're then adding Social Network type function to this graph. And by getting involved in OpenSocial early, they're then moving towards providing Facebook type function on top of all this. So now explain to me how this couldn't or shouldn't be done by GMail. Especially as many of us are already using GMail as a poor man's Rolodex, purely because every new shiny Social Network has a Gmail Import function. At which point I look at Orkut which is where all the OpenSocial action is centered. Why the hell doesn't Orkut have a "Find my GMail friends" function? When we were talking about FOAF, I remember suggesting an application that exported your IM Contacts as a FOAF file. Same for your Outlook address file. Both of those ideas suggest to me that there is Social Graph information hidden in both IM and Email.

Which then raises the question of Plaxo. They are aggregating Social Graph information from Email. They’re then adding Social Network type function to this graph. And by getting involved in OpenSocial early, they’re then moving towards providing Facebook type function on top of all this. So now explain to me how this couldn’t or shouldn’t be done by GMail. Especially as many of us are already using GMail as a poor man’s Rolodex, purely because every new shiny Social Network has a Gmail Import function.

At which point I look at Orkut which is where all the OpenSocial action is centered. Why the hell doesn’t Orkut have a “Find my GMail friends” function?

]]> By: fred wilson http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243382 fred wilson Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:00:45 +0000 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/11/why-on-line-email-and-im-systems-aint-social-graphs#comment-243382 Marc I ended my post with something like "google, microsoft, yahoo, and AOL had better get busy" they aren't social nets. but they can be. the "friends" i have on facebook don't include 90% of my best friends but my best friends are all in my email address book and with a tool like xobni, i now know who are my top email relationships my wife, my partner, my kids, my buddies, my co-workers, etc that is my social graph facebook isn't and never will be so if any of these email or IM vendors got religion about building a real social net on top of the address books or buddy lists they have, it would powerful at least it would be powerful for me fred Marc

I ended my post with something like “google, microsoft, yahoo, and AOL had better get busy”

they aren’t social nets. but they can be. the “friends” i have on facebook don’t include 90% of my best friends

but my best friends are all in my email address book

and with a tool like xobni, i now know who are my top email relationships

my wife, my partner, my kids, my buddies, my co-workers, etc

that is my social graph

facebook isn’t and never will be

so if any of these email or IM vendors got religion about building a real social net on top of the address books or buddy lists they have, it would powerful

at least it would be powerful for me

fred

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