How Meeting People Online Becomes Science with Social Networks

Date: Jun 18, 2004

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It's not what you know—it's who you know, or so the saying goes. What we know can get us very far in the world, but sooner or later, we all have to accomplish something that we don't have the skills to do ourselves. Whether it's at work, at home or at play, eventually there's a task or chore that we need someone to do for us. It can be anything from finding a Flash programmer/designer to unloading sheets of plywood from the minivan.

Every day, we rely on others to do specialized tasks that we can't do for ourselves: sales reps, service providers and lawyers, doctors, childcare providers, and contractors. We use phones, email, and word of mouth to communicate recommendations and referrals in hopes of finding the right person to solve our need. Sooner or later, we all need to tap into our people network to find friends to help us get by.

Six Degrees

Social networks are based on the work of Stanley Milgrim. In 1967, he sent packages to randomly selected people in Omaha, Nebraska—asking them each to mail the package back to stockbroker in Boston. They were asked to pass it along to someone they thought was better able to find the target. Milgrim (who also pioneered the study of authority that led test subjects to believe they were shocking another human with a fatal level of electricity) found that on average only six acquaintances were needed for the package to find its target. Hence, the six degrees of separation commonly understood as the number of people between us and an unknown acquaintance. (This was also popularized as the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: a game in which contestants try to connect Kevin Bacon to another actor by listing the movies they have in common.)

In 1998, researchers at Columbia University attempted to re-create Milgrim's findings online by asking people to forward an email to someone more likely to be an acquaintance of the target. The average chain was completed with an average of six hops (five if the source and target person were in the same country). But only 384 of the more than 24,000 chains were completed. The researchers' small-world hypothesis held up in the digital age, but only when the source believed in the strength of his network and was motivated to proceed. There are many venues to network and build networks, but the sources in Columbia's study needed to believe in the probability of success to complete their action in the chain. In other words, just building it doesn't mean they will come. Several online social networks have already discovered that to their chagrin, and have gone out of business—but many still remain.

More than Dating

Online dating sites such as Match, UDate, and Matchmaker offer means of connecting on a one-to-one basis. Through profiles and targeted searches, these subscription-based services offer messaging tools to communicate with each other and establish offline meeting places. Online social networks goal toward the one-to-one connection, but do it through a more personalized one-to-many experience. They build a user base of connected individuals: friends of friends of friends. They hope that because you already have a one- or two-degree connection to these individuals, you will be more motivated to use their services.

Enter the online social network. These online sites leverage the tools of the computer network (searching, messaging) to enable us to fulfill the requirements of our people network to find a Citrix-savvy project manager or a buddy to go hiking with.

There are more than 50 different social networks available online (some of them admittedly less well-known). We take a look at three of them in this article: Friendster, LinkedIn, and Orkut. They are not only among the most popular, but are also representative of the different types of social networks available online.

These networks all leverage similar technologies to make connections. Filling out a profile of yourself and inviting your friends and co-workers to do the same enables you to view their list of connections and request contact with people in their lists. You can then search through your degrees of acquaintance based on certain criteria—shared interests, geography, and so on—and each site provides different types of messaging (some within the system and some without).

Friendster

Friendster, the pioneer of social networks, is also the bridge between online dating sites and social networks. The premise is that your dates will be more successful if you date people referred by your friends and acquaintances. And if the dating thing doesn't work out, you can just hang out and be buddies. And Friendster hopes that when you do hang out, you do it online (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Your Friendster home page—where you can see your friends and message notifications.

Friendster claims more than 5 million registrants, which is a much larger user base than most other networks to date. That number, however, doesn't necessary equate to 5 million potential dates. Following the Six Degrees convention, who you see and have access to contacting on Friendster is based on your circle of friends, their friends and their friends' friends.

Some of the users who have signed up for Friendster aren't exactly human. A variety of pets, mostly dogs and cats, have registered. Presumably in search of play dates, characters such as Oscar the Grouch and Sloth (of Goonies fame) are available to be friends with. Then there are the inanimate objects such as Boston's Citgo sign (a local landmark), plus several towns. Adding a city or town to your circle of friends is an easy way to quickly expand your network, if that's your aim, because everyone who's a friend of that city or town falls within your circle.

Friendster's orientation is one-to-one, similar to a dating service. It's also linear, friend-to-friend, so there's no easy way to create a community of individuals around a common interest (hence, the non-human registrants). In addition to an internal messaging or email system, with your registration you also get a "bulletin board," which is a quick way to send a notice to all your Friendster friends. You can use bulletin boards to announce your next party, as a blog-like device, or just to brag about your latest accomplishment (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Friendster's profile page asks questions to help prospective friends, and dates get to know you.

Although still in beta, eventually Friendster hopes to start charging a fee for certain services (it hasn't yet said when that will happen). In the meantime, it's earning some money through sponsored advertising. I experienced latency and overall slowness several time when trying to use Friendster, enough that on two separate occasions I left the site and went to do something else. Obviously, that problem will need to be addressed if members are expected to pay for service.

Still, if you're looking to create an online hangout with a bunch of your mostly-single friends, Friendster is the place to be.

Friendster Snippet

Boost your circle of friends:

• Invite your friends and write each other testimonials—it's fun.

• Join a town—automatically broaden your circle of friends.

• Log in to Friendster frequently—it makes you more attractive to prospective friends.

Orkut

If you wondered where all those dot-com employees went, look no farther than Orkut. Google's entry into the social networking realm takes the idea of a circle of friends a couple of steps farther. Unlike Friendster, you can't just sign up for Orkut. Someone's who's already a member has to invite you.

Although it's billed as a "network of trusted friends," like Friendster, the definition of friend is a bit lax. For one thing, from your homepage you can browse your friends' networks and those of their friends as well (see Figure 3). For another, it is possible to search by first or last name, instead of both (which Friendster requires). Also, Orkut encourages the formation of communities based on common interests: hobbies, universities, cities, and other mutual interests. So whether you're a fan of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, you're a resident of Framingham, MA, or you really really like sushi, you'll find a community you can join on Orkut.

Figure 3 Orkut offers an online hangout for individuals to connect on a one-to-one basis.

In classic Web-style of false intimacy, you can see a person's picture, the communities he or she is part of, and on just because you're the friend of a friend of a friend of theirs. Privacy settings allow you to determine who sees your contact information in the real world, and you can screen out contact from those you chose to via an ignore list.

Orkut is an engineer's dream come true. It's the brain child of Google employee Orkut Buyukkokten, built in the 20 percent of time in which Google engineers are allowed to develop independent projects. It is rich in features with an internal messaging system, bookmarks, and lists (to keep track of those you think are hot, or not), plus an internal "karma" system. Friends can secretly rate you as being cool, trustworthy, or sexy. When five or more people have rated you, icons appear displaying your "karma" or level of cool or trustworthiness (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 Orkut divides your profile into three areas: social, professional, and personal.

Like the others, Orkut is in beta, but the only beta thing I noticed was a tendency for pages to time out, particularly in the afternoon (East Coast time).

Orkut tries to be all things to all people. If you want to find a date, Orkut can help. If you want to hang out with friends, Orkut can help. If you're building a business network...you get the picture. Though supportive of Orkut's endeavors, Google says it currently has no plans in the social networking space. In the meantime, there are tools and members to support the growing community.

Okut Snippet

Top three non-computer communities as of April 7, 2004:

• The Simpsons (3,571 members)

• Photography (3,055 members)

• Anyone but Bush in 2004 (2,876 members)

LinkedIn

For those who find it more productive to spend their time building their professional network, LinkedIn fits the bill. In an attempt to be a master of one trade, LinkedIn uses the same features found in social networks: profiles, searching, connecting. But it also focuses on completing business tasks: recruiting, securing leads, and locating industry experts (see Figure 5).

Figure 5 Reflecting its business focus, LinkedIn's homepage is utilitarian and action-oriented.

Everything about this site—the features, look and feel, and company messaging—is designed to support LinkedIn's focus on supporting business networking. The profile is much more resumé-like (see Figure 6).

Figure 6 Your LinkedIn profile lists past work experience. Former managers and co-workers can post endorsements, adding their commentary to your work.

And although other services let you write "testimonials" about your friends, LinkedIn calls them endorsements, and they are specifically job-related. They work as sort of an online reference, which can save time for prospective employers. In other words, you can brag about your previous work experience, and future business contacts have the comfort of knowing that one or more people you worked with or for agree with you.

LinkedIn also professionalizes the circle-building process. As you browse through your friends' networks on other sites, you can add them to your own network. LinkedIn requires that you know a contact's email address in order to do that. And it gives the contact the ability to approve being added to your network. If you don't have their email, you need to request it from someone in your network. The request must be approved at every point along the way, so if you're trying to reach someone three degrees away, it must be approved by the two contacts in between you and the person you are trying to reach.

By requiring this approval, as well as making future plans to charge for making requests to people outside your network, LinkedIn hopes to provide a natural filter for spam and other irrelevant contacts. This feature is free during the beta period. Also, even though all three social networks mentioned here were in "beta" according to their respective companies, LinkedIn was the only one that didn't display any latency or timing-out issues during the evaluation period.

LinkedIn Snippet

Get Found—increase your ranking in search results:

1. Create rich enough profile—use good keywords.

2. Maintain a good number of connections—people with most connections are listed first.

3. Request endorsements—just one makes people 4x more likely to initiate contact with you.

There are all kinds of reasons to use a social network. You can find old school chums, connect with former co-workers to find a new job, or just exchange testimonials with friends and have some fun. The best use of a social network is to use it to facilitate offline contact. So set up a date with the friend of a friend, get the gang together for a game of one-on-one, or poll your network for that resume for that recruiting challenge you had at work. You'll be glad you did.

Tip Sheet

Social networks can be a great way to meet people and connect with friends and coworkers. Based on Stanley Milgrim's six degrees of separation finding, social networks allow you to establish contact between overlapping circles of acquaintance. Columbia University proved in 1998 that Milgrim's networking model holds up online as well, although only when participants are motivated (for example, when they believe there's a good probability of success).

In the online world, features and functionality help to ensure that belief. Detailed profiles, recommendations, and photos help create a feeling of intimacy, so it is easier to reach out to people you don't know.

Friendster, the de facto standard in online social networks, has the largest community so far, although you won't necessarily see this because you see only the people who are in your circle of acquaintance—up to three degrees out. If you're looking for a date or a play date for yourself, it's a good place to hang out.

Orkut is also a good place to hang out with your acquaintances, be they friends or friendly co-workers. With a rich set of tools, including messaging, rating, and the ability to create communities, Orkut offers a wired way to connect with distant friends.

For something completely different, LinkedIn is a social network aimed at solving business problems. When you need skilled labor or a contact at a specific company, you can cold call, but why do it the hard way? LinkedIn lets you tap your professional network to leverage recommendations from people you know.

These social networks are still in a beta period, which means they are free services, although they all make it clear that that is a limited-time offer. Two of the services, Friendster and Orkut, also demonstrated some page time-out problems, which was annoying, but didn't result in any data loss.

Online social networks give us a way to get to know the people who know the people we know, in way that's browsable and searchable. Although that may also help us solve an immediate problem we have, it allows us to deepen our existing friendships.

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