Trying to be the one true social graph is like trying to hold water in your fist | Hacker News Reader

Trying to be the one true social graph is like trying to hold water in your fist

hunterwalk.com

25 pointsPr06 comments

Broadly agree - not every "Instagram" will say yes to being acquired, and there will definitely be more "Instagrams" (mobile social/communication networks that rapidly grow and get sticky).

That being said, a meaningful portion of the premise is doubtful:

"In order to realize its hundred-billion-dollar dreams, Facebook needs to forever dominate all of the world’s social interactions"

Not really. In order to realize it's hundred-billion-dollar dreams, Facebook needs to figure out a. how to make more commerce happen (Eg gifts) b. how to make more ads happen (As they're working on) or c. how to make a kind of ad that converts at a massively higher rate, (such that ceteris paribus, their ad inventory climbs in value)

Dominating all the worlds social interactions, while a nice goal, is hardly necessary, and if that was the standard Facebook was judging itself against, they're likely being set up to fail fail. For example - email in the work context is a social interaction (and a large and high value one at that). What are the chances those sorts of interactions (Where privacy/security/proprietary data are concerned) ever happen on Facebook?

great points. I can't put myself inside the heads of FB execs, but I always got the sense there was a notion of "we will be the largest graph and anyone who wants their product to be social, will see the value to build on top of our graph."

"Maybe each generation needs a space to call their own: We've never had a social graph last >10 years at scale."

Physical postal addresses (and address books, if you insist).

Telephone numbers (and address books, if you insist).

I wrote the post. Curious on feedback. What do you guys think?

It's pretty uncontroversial that Facebook has never been the "one true social graph". The obvious example is LinkedIn, which your article curiously doesn't mention; most people already have separate social graphs for their professional and privates lives.

yeah, although I bet if you asked Facebook they would have thought a Facebook Connect driven app would have seriously challenged LinkedIn by now, but anyone who tries it fails. I think it's because people don't associate the Facebook brand with their professional identity and thus want to keep separate.

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