How Social Networking is Shaping a New World

The world is not the same place it was a decade ago. Much has happened during that time, but perhaps the most formative change has been the rise of social media and the role it has taken in the modern world. Aside from the most obvious benefit of these tools, improved communication and connection, the ways in which people are using social media have continued to evolve and are changing the world.

While some of the most obvious impacts of social media have occurred in the geopolitical sphere, politics have not been the only thing touched by the rise of social media. There has also been a dramatic cultural shift that has been felt across the world. Social media has made the sharing of information easier than at any other time in the history of the world. This has given rise to new trends and hobbies around the globe, has inspired people to try new things and has shown us that we have so much to learn from one another. Parkour, for example, the French martial art of “free running,” became famous overnight because of videos that were shared online.

We have also seen the Internet change modern education with the increased popularity of online continuing education programs and the improvement of educational discourse. Even modern romance has seen changes brought about by the rise of social media. Networks like Match.com and eHarmony have helped thousands of people connect and find love. Services like Skype and Facebook have even made long distance relationships more tolerable than they once were.

Considering that these tools and the internet itself are still in their infancy, it will be fascinating to see what other changes await us. Social media has given our generation the power to dramatically alter the way the world works. Let’s make sure that we keep changing it for the better.

If Connection is the Pinnacle of Social Networking, What’s Next?

A few months ago there was an article congratulating Facebook for reducing the degrees of separation from 6 to a little more than 4 around the world. The industry response generally was to laud this news as a crowning achievement of networking to that point.  While the connectivity of social networking has always been an unspoken truth of the Internet, it hadn’t really been publicly presented in such a prominent way until that point, at least not so directly in regards to social networking.

Hearing this news has to make you wonder if this was the plan of social networks all along.  From the perspective that social networking is designed to connect us, Facebook and the rest of the social networking giants have absolutely killed it.  They have made the world a smaller place in their ability to connect people. Taking that a step further if they’ve accomplished what was set out to do, where do we go from here?  What does this connection mean for us?

While it couldmean creating shared experiences and memories together, right now it’s limited to posting a short sentence of what your own feelings are or what you yourself are doing.  Maybe even a photo of the new city you’re in.  This no doubt allows us to broadcast our own experiences with others, but we’re not really sharing them together.

“Well I got to the pinnacle of social networking, so here’s a photo of Me jumping off of it”

This conundrum is something we all dislike and want to make better, not something we should be used to doing.  Unfortunately it’s what sharing and being connected online has come to mean.  If we’ve reached the point where connecting people has been solved, then what’s next?  With OurPangea we want to transcend from broadcasting to others to sharing together.  We believe that being connected should mean being able to have a relationship online in a more similar way to how you enjoy your relationships offline.  We want people to recognize online connection as a way to experience and collaborate on the things they love to do together.

Our world is unquestionably now a connected one.  We have harnessed that power.   Now let’s build something bigger and greater with that.  Let’s move past connection and towards unity.  This is what we are striving for.

What to Make of Google’s new ‘Semantic Social Networking’ Patent

Google has been going hog wild in acquiring new patents recently.  Just a few weeks ago they bought an IBM patent for something called ‘Semantic Social Networking.’  Perhaps more than any other recent patent, this hints at plans to start taking social networking to the next level.

While the theory and application of semantic social networking is complex, the idea itself is very simple:  gather and organize data (or people) according to shared interests.  Over the past few years the idea of semantic networking has become the holy grail for some tech circles interested in search and networking. This is evidenced by the countless new entrants and product introductions by the likes of T2, Huohua, and Yummly, to name a few.

We always knew Google had its hand in semantic networks, but not until the purchase of this IBM patent and G+’s forceful integration into everything Google is it becoming apparent exactly how far they intend to take it.  Bringing a semantic approach to mainstream online networking could change everything.  It would provide you with all of your interests in an easily indexed structure, and it makes the possibility of a truly Proactive online model possible.  Put simply – semantic networking could usher in a new era of online networking and fundamentally change the way people think about and use the Internet.

Semantic social networking could potentially be the biggest, most impactful change to social networking in a long time, but where Google has it wrong is not in what they’re doing, but where they’re doing it. It’s not a stretch to assume that G+ will be the tool they use to showcase the potential of semantic networking, but it’s simply the wrong vehicle for this. For one thing, G+ is not successful or solid enough as a stand-alone network to become a flagship semantic network. Trying to make G+ a semantic social network is like trying to put metal wings on a cardboard plane and expecting it to fly. Furthermore, G+ just isn’t built to accommodate semantic networks, everything is rigidly organized and predefined based on the networks you already have.  Semantic networking doesn’t necessarily need to allow for discovery, but discovery should be the natural progression of it given the inherent purpose of connecting users with people and things around them.

Given this, it seems that the problem of applying semantics extends beyond just G+ into the overall structure and state of social networking today. Our social networks, including G+, today are based on a reactive model, meaning that users only benefit from interacting with people they already know.  For a user to get value from a reactive network they need to have an existing base of connections to bring with them to be able to interact.

I understand that Google is pushing to have more cohesive product offerings in lieu of a platform, but if Google really wants to use this patent and truly realize the effects of semantic theory they need to forget G+.  It’s unfortunate that after close to a decade of defining and exploring the potential of social networks, semantic value has yet to become truly understood and properly applied. If one of the biggest benefits of semantic social networking is allowing users to connect and discover what’s around them, what good is this without defining the communities and groups that these things exist within?  Add a human element to semantic algorithms and semantic social networking has incredibly impressive and broad-reaching implications.

As Google understands, creating a properly functioning semantic network will benefit both users and their communities far beyond what’s possible by using the current networking model.  To really maximize what is possible with a semantic network we need a model that encapsulates everything these interests and communities have to offer, not just one that organizes these things (cough G+), and be able to translate user actions into something that is actually beneficial and relevant to the greater communities and interest groups naturally created by us humans, the force that drives online relevance. It needs to be less of a place to share links with friends and more of a place where you truly can discover the people and things around you in a natural way.

Google is investing a lot of time and money to make G+ the center of its products line because Google can see the potential of semantic networking and recognizes that semantics are truly the next evolution of the online networking model.  Hopefully the industry as a whole will begin to recognize and embrace the potential of semantic social networking and Google, if they’re smart, will abandon G+ and create something that can really handle semantic structure.