The New Network: Affinity to the Rescue

For some time know, I have been looking at the shifts in social bonds as a result of social networks.  The outgrowth of Facebook, MySpace and a number of similar services has us re-evaluating things we traditionally understood without ambiguity - like friends, groups, interests, and status.

My good friend Brian Solis has an interesting post today that discusses some of the changes that are happening.  As Brian writes in “Micro Disruption Theory and The Social Effect”:

"Relationships are so much more than the mere act of following or friending someone on Twitter or any social network for that matter. It's the balladry of transcending online connections into real world relationships. It's the cadence of interaction and the poetry of conversations that empower the human network and the escalation of the Social Economy.

On Social Networks we’re bound by context and not necessarily by the relationships that link us in the real world.

Source: Brian Solis, “Micro Disruption Theory and The Social Effect”

I think it’s an interesting notion that we’re bound by context.  I think that this is true at the most basic level - there is a general sentiment about the venue through which we network.  Social networks are marketplaces of intention.  Daters flock to online dating sites in search of relationships, LinkedIn caters to the business professional, Facebook caters to, well that’s not that simple anymore to provide a single context - but friendship seems a suitable bucket.

I think, however, that we’re just scratching the surface.  Our networks are being bastardized in lots of ways.  We glom together everyone into one pool and then we’re overwhelmed with having to deal with it all at the same time.  In our real lives, we are capable of maintaining many granular networks of individuals.  We’ve moved past the differentiation of social networks (see Social Networking Differentiation 2.0, June 2006) but there’s still quite a bit left unsettled.

It seems we’re ready for the next phase of differentiation - where micro actions are aggregated back together to resemble real things. I’ll use an analogy to better describe just what I think this looks like.  If we imagine our network of relationships as a home, the foundation is made up of those real, physical relationships that we have with others.  Right now, we’re on the ground floor - where we welcome new people at our virtual front doors.  With time, attention, and enthusiasm, those same guests on the ground floor are invited upstairs: they’re the friends that come to visit from out of town, that make your home their own home.

The second level of relationships I call Affinity Networks.  They are truly contextualized networks of friends and family and other individuals that you care about.  Brian nails it when he points out that “We listen to relevant keywords to learn from others who share our interests and passions.”  Truth is, however, that those are just directional pointers to the individuals that are seemingly important or relevant.  Beyond that initial interest, it takes a great deal of interaction and discovery to actually forge real relationships that last through time.

Affinity networks differ in that they don’t deal with the people connected but instead with the subject at the core.  That “subject” may be a person, place, or thing, but everyone gathered shares a bond to this central concept.  Affinity networks allow us to re-constitute all the micro actions and gestures and give us focus again on those trends, themes, and individuals that mean the most to us.

I’ve often noted that as much as technology provides us new ways to reach out to more and more people, further and further away, it’s our nature to seek out the solutions that mimic or engender closeness, touch.  Seems we’re ripe for something new.