Reflections on Social Networks with Danah Boyd

It’s a small world – does social networks make it better?

Facebooked…has become as common as a verb as googled. There are 1,9 million hits if you search for facebook addiction. New online communities and social networks are evolving from the most unexpected corners and directions. Futurists and analysts alike are fighting to understand what is a fad and what is a fundamental change in how we live and play. Well I had a tea with someone who knows…

But first let´s travel back in time to try to understand how the social networking craze online started. My first experience was when my good friend Eric Wachtmeister came into my office 8 years ago and said. I am going to put all my contacts online and create a club where everyone can interact with each other. I am going to call the club “the green cobra”. I must admit that I did not fully understand why it was so cool but I instinctively disliked the name and told him so. Eric is one of the most welconnected people on the planet and he is rumoured to have had 20 000 names in his rolodex after a long life as a business man, playboy and jetsetter on a global scale. Among these friends celebs like Prince Albert, Paris Hilton and a good number of the top international jetsetters. Eric came back to me shortly after and said Ola, I came up with a new name! How do you like asmallworld.net? Today asmallworld (asw.com) is the worlds leading by invitation network online with 300 000 exclusive members flirting, partying, doing business, recruiting and everything else accomplish jetsetters can think of doing togheter. As an example I was in Punta del Este in Uruguay for the first time for New Years and I was invited to six big parties by people I do not know since I was a member of asmallworld…

Asmallworld proves one of the fundamental truths of how these networks grow, the first members, the core, needs to an elite representation of what the network should involve into. Think of it as a dating site or a night club. If unattractive people are there first, no one follows. The contrary is of course also true. But is there any dangers with social softwares and online networking? If we leave a nische phenomena such as asmallworld and look at the larger networks that are growing with tens of millions of users yearly?

I had a an interesting cup of tea with Danah Boyd, who is a PhD student at the School of Information at Berkeley and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Danah has studied online networks and is one of the only academics specializing in the field.

To listen to Danah is like being showered with interesting thoughts and perspectives and a fast track to understanding more than what you see on the surface of the evolving digital society. Especially when it comes to the flood of online networks like Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and all the copy cats. While most people are joining the choir singing the online networks gospel or admiring their own newly pimped profile Danah is a lot more critical.

Danah provoked strong reactions from the bloggers of this world and from traditional media alike when she came out with an article claiming that social software in general and Facebook and Myspace in particular creates a new class society, while at the same time reinforcing the old working class vs upper class polarization (read her papers at http://www.zephoria.org).

In Danahs view Myspace is the home for the working class which is shown not only by what people are doing for a living but also through things like interests and the manner by which the myspaces pages look (read: bling bling). Myspace pages can be the show stopper at job interviews or can even be the cause of the myspacer getting fired. Facebook on the other side, grew from the elite at Harvard, to capturing large parts of the college scene to becoming the social network of choice for academics and for the privileged class. On Facebook the well todo display academic merits, an international network, openness and a modern mindset that alongside impeccable grades and/or an evident silver spoon close at hand enforces the overall profile of the Facebooker.

Many of the critics of Danahs thesis, maybe including the companies themselves, seem to misunderstand the implications of her statements and interpreted them as Myspace having a tougher future ahead when the truth might be the opposite in a world where the rich and successful are a scarce minority in comparison with the overwhelming minority of consumption ready masses.

In Danahs vision of the future, both of the companies and many other fast growing social networks will face trouble. The notion of having everyone in the same social space is not so easy in practise. One example is what she calls the parent-child phenomena. For a 16 year old daughter the mere thought of having her mother seeing her drunk on photos from a party she should not even have had when the parent where gone is as disturbing as it is for the mother to have her daughter seeing her unorthodox sexual preferences or way of interacting with other grown-up´s.

When looking at the phenomena as such, social networks will embark on a new even more mass market oriented journey once the recipe of getting into the handsets is figured out. Today the lack of interoperability between carriers and handset manufacturers makes it virtually impossible for social media to interact in a meaningful way besides the call and the sms. This change will not come until the Telco’s change attitude or until WiFi or other technologies can bypass the existing oligopolies. Until that happens we are stuck. Glued to our computers I a world of self publishing where everyone craves 15 bytes of fame.