Automating Friendship with Social Software

The term “Social Software” seems oxymoronic. Software isn’t social—people are. The juxtaposed words connote weird images of software programs doing human things. I see a Word disc frolicking with Excel’s slender figures. The two may be at a party where Real.com plays melodies to a Quickening tempo. As Plaxo passes the pretzels, the entire enterprise suite sips PowerPoint punch. Everyone’s logic becomes fuzzy. Hopefully, the most pervasive of these software socializers uses an antivirus precaution before getting ubiquitous.

Social Software’s vernacular employs many terms that concern me as well. A “trusted network” has nothing to do with Ethernet but involves spreading around the personal information of people who trust you. “Social capital” does not refer to old Moscow, but implies making tangible assets of your friendships. Social Software promises to increase your access to people useful to you by orders of magnitude. Does this not sound like some form of pyramid scheme?

I spent a portion of the last year trying very hard to love this emerging category but that is not the way it came out. I make some of my living by consulting start ups and this year. there’s a faint crop. The ones getting beyond seed are dominated by social software. The venture community has awarded the category a GRAH (Generally Recognized as Hot) and has queued up to invest in more times probably, than the market will bear. While no one I know of is making a dime of profit in the category several companies like Plaxo, Friendster, Tribe.net., Linked-In and Spoke.com are already being identified as too well-established to displace.

There’s an almost symbiotic correlation between bloggers and social networkers, perhaps because both have a grassroots feel, while holding significant power. Social Software already has a blog of its own and its popularity seems to be growing. You probably already know how the stuff works. Participants pool their personal contact information at a hosted ASP. If someone you know chooses to join, you get invited. Members pool contact resources to expedite jobs, dates, leads or colleagues. When Person A wants to meet Person B, an introduction gets requested. Personal information is not given out until permission is granted. Most sites use phrases like “trusted friends,” but the real trust is between the registrants and the ASP hosts, each of whom vow “never” to abuse your contact information. I even believe the vow is true now, but “never” is a very long time.

For me, there’s a sense of déjà vu. VCs are ponying up investments apparently without much sense of history. The business plans often emulate the worst thinking of the Dot Com Era and VCs, burned once seem undaunted by the experience . I’ve written , recently about the VC community and it needs a purge. I consider the collective wisdom of the venture community worth about as much as a pitcher of spit—not counting the pitcher.

Social software right now, is mostly freeware. In most cases, its developers expect to charge for it once “critical mass” is reached-an undetermined number of users and some unspecified point in the future. It must be a huge number, at some far distant point. Several already have a million users, or so they say, but arte not moving toward any monetization plans from what I can determine. That, I assume, is because they will have monumental drop-off rates, once they ask for payment.

All of this, seems to me to be issues that can be worked out. Most of the software still lacks elegance, but that too can be refined in time. There are larger issues, raised by deep-thinkers who generally hold significant respect and credibility in the tech community. Jerry Michalski writing in Red Herring noted that while the current companies aggregating your personal information may be sincere in their vows to protect user privacy, many will inevitably be bought by larger entities, who have made no such promises. Even if they remain independent, these companies today are mere entrepreneurial seedlings. Over time, management teams change and the rules they enforced get obfuscated. Little companies usually get acquired by big companies who have made no vows to respect privacy and consider your social capital to be among their purchased assets.

Michalski’s former employer, Esther Dyson’s at Release 1.0, an industry insider newsletter has also weighed in with column that raises relevent additional concerns on the threat of social software eroding the meaning of friendship.

I agree with them both. Data has a way of seeping into places where it gets abused, no matter how secure its original confinement was considered. Social Capital or so It seems to me, does not reside in who I know, but in their opinions of me. That is shaped by how trustworthy I behave with them over time. Making their personal information vulnerable to future exploitation for my personal gain seems to cheapen the value of that asset.

Comments

[Ross Mayfield]

You mean Social Networking

[Tom]

Why?

I believe blogging (which you support) and now social networking are driven by teenagers. In its current state, granted, social networking is worthless. But its amenities are improving, its in high demand, and in the end will bend and flex to meet both people and profit.

Much money is being invested, with risk, into this phenomenon. Much money was invested into dot coms as well. But social networking has an ever-growing user base....the people are there, the idea is there, all the remains is to profit off them.