Social X-Rays and Xeroxes: Permeability and Persistence

As I have noted before, there are some inherent issues with the current crop of Social X-Rays and Social Xeroes employed by the current crop of SNS, or Artifical Socail Networks (ANS) as David Weinberger has recently coined.

Both of these tools provides different forms of abstraction for individuals and their relationships. By definition, X-Rays provide a picture of the internal structure and organization of an entity, just as SNS attempts to visualize the connectiveness of our networks. Xeroxes, on the other hand, provide archived glimpses of information that can be accessed and reviewed, much as the current SNS profile does.

Unfortunately, almost of all these systems are challenged by the extremely dynamic nature of individuals and their relationships. Static depictions and rigid containers always seem out of date and disconnected.

Clay Shirky has posted some thoughts on a recent piece by David Weinberger, "The Truth About Why I Hate Friendster". As David notes, there are many perils (paraphrasing):

• They attempt to recreate our social network by making us be explicit about it
• ASNs make us be precise about that which is necessarily messy and ambiguous
• They inculcate the stupid belief that relationships are commutative
• The fact that they require explicitness in public about relationships guarantees that they will generate inordinate amounts of bullshit

[...]

ASNs are closed networks when it comes to data. Of course they exist on the Net and use the usual Net protocols, but these systems get their benefits by walling off their data. The benefits are powerful. But, like AOL back when the Web started, they are protectionist. As a result, as more data is added to them, their value increases but that value is invisible to the rest of the Net. The open Net becomes less valuable as human links are moved into ASNs.

Source: David Weinberger, "The truth about why I hate Friendster"

Clealy this drives at the comparison between SNS and X-Rays. In Clay's repsonse, he takes a slightly different approach to the subjec, this time addressing the xerox more directlyt:

Universally inclusive and consumable information about me is, almost by definition, going to be so bland as to be useless (“Mr. Shirky is a Pisces, and likes Chinese noodles.”) The membrane-bound characteristics he kicks against with Wallop et al are actually useful to limiting the exposure information with real social value. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t non-Wallopish ways to get the value of semi-permeable membranes, but FOAF in its present incarnation sure ain’t it.

Source: Many 2 Many, "Weinberger on ASN's and FOAF"

Again, the issues that seem to come into play here deal with the forced infrastructure of the SNS systems as a whole when compared to the fluid nature of even the most simple human relationship. Two interesting questions arise from this comparison:

• If there was a solution, what would it look like?

  Is the ideal solution simply larger, but still as rigid? Is it completely open but not as "searchable"? Is it focused on certain aspects but ignorant of others?

• At what point does the ROI terminate?

  Who will exert the greater effort in this arena? The developers of SNS software or the consumers of them? At what point do we nullify the value of the artificial network? People already can't find their e-mail, will we next lose our friends?