Tag Archives: social network

Social Tech, Social Network Optimization, and Bandwidth

When I first started using the term ‘Social Technology‘ back in about 1993, it was an expression I had not heard before, though a rather obvious one. I seized upon it because I needed a replacement for the term I … Continue reading

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Invalid Comparison Algorithm Produces Bad Suggestions

StumbleUpon “Suggested People” or “People You Might Know” is not really useful because it is not normalized (in the mathematical sense). As it works now, you get suggestions about people who have something in common with you — because they have stumbled a lot and have lots of favorites. By the laws of chance someone with a vast number of favorites will share a lot of them with you. What you should see instead are people who have a lot of favorites that you have, relative to the total number they have. A comparison algorithm should try to predict the probability of the two people having similar page-favorite profiles, i.e. the probability they are actually alike and will like the same pages. Continue reading

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Old Social Technology

I have often said that our current level of social technology is like that of medicine before the mechanisms of disease and the need for sterility were understood.   We now have medical terms like microorganisms and sterile field which … Continue reading

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Ideally you and I should each be connected with a small number of people who in some way should be communicating or working with us. I have a lot to say but only a few want to listen to me. I am willing to listen, but not to everything. I need help with some things, can offer help with others. Taken together these criteria should cut down the number of people I should communicate with to a manageable number. Actually finding those people is an impossible problem with the social tools we have at the moment. If seriously trying to find the people we need, we are almost always “infected” with a lot of unwanted or at least inappropriate social contacts. Continue reading

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