Social Network Transitions

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Social Network Transitions
What will the next big thing be? "It will be a situationally relevant social experience that exploits dense, underserved clusters, treating the ego-centric aspects as a sub-feature." If that's not clear, then you want to read this post, which makes a very useful distinction between ego-based and object-based social networks (the former center around people, the way Facebook does, the latter around objects, such as photos, the way Flickr does). Because ego-centered social networks do not have objects around which to based networks, they need to mine dense clusters opf relationships - in the case of Facebook, for example, previously existing social strata in schools and colleges. Any migration from Facebook will have to be similarly based. "I'm almost certain that the experience will be mobile based, incorporating geolocational data and personal beacons," writes Fred Stutzman. Via Terry Anderson, who asks, "what combination of ego-centric versus object-centered site is most appropriate?" My own approach has been to think of learning networks as neither object nor ego centered, but rather, to be centered around some activity or purpose. More...