How to Build a Better Social Network

One very common pitfall for naive implementations of discovery, ranking or status is to inadvertently stop newcomers from “breaking in”.Any social experience will typically have attention or display mechanisms that need to take relative status into account. A naive implementation of a “suggestions” feed or a “top users” might be to rank content bas... See more

Small tweaks can create a massive macro changes in complex networks, and because of the bidirectional edge, Facebook ended up with a much more private network whereas Twitter looks more like news distribution. Stories from brands can feel forced on Facebook because they don’t truly have a bidirectional arrow, which in the context of Facebook means ... See more

A social network like Path attempted to limit your social graph size to the Dunbar number, capping your social capital accumulation potential and capping the distribution of your posts. The exchange, they hoped, was some greater transparency, more genuine self-expression. The anti-Facebook. Unfortunately, as social capital theory might predict, Pat... See more

Right now, and for the foreseeable future, follower graphs on centralized social networks are a source of significant and enduring value. We see in every dimension of our society how efficiently that influence can be translated into financial, political and cultural gain. So to ask our question another way: Will there be a time when most users’ on-... See more

The most important role in a social network is the vibe designer, because the big questions are sociological, not technological.