In the context of Google gearing up for another assault on Facebook in the hopes that this one may prove more successful, an internal presentation on social networking, created by a Google researcher, has been making waves. The presentation isn’t new, nor is it necessarily indicative of what Google Me, the
rumored social network the company is now working on, will look like, but it’s an interesting perspective on the phenomenon and on what Google has to work with.
The
presentation called “The Real Life Social Network” addresses some of the issues currently faced by social networks, including Facebook. One of the main problems, the paper shows, is that, by default, all connections are grouped into one big Friends category with no way for users to separate them like they would in real life.
Coworkers are bundled together with family, people you know online and drinking buddies and it’s hard to make a clear distinction between them. Facebook does have the option of setting different privacy settings for different groups, but the process is cumbersome and not very effective.
This is clearly an issue and one not addressed by most social networks out there and certainly not by Facebook. Of course, it doesn’t mean that Google’s upcoming social network, which has not been confirmed by the company but which
looks like a sure bet, will focus on groups as a way of differentiating itself. But it does seem like an avenue that may have a lot of fans.
Another issue covered by the presentation is privacy. Contrary to what both Facebook and Google generally believe, the report says that people do care about online privacy. It’s only the fact that most don’t realize the size of the audience they’re exposing themselves to that makes it look like people are more relaxed towards this online. Regardless of how the work influences Google’s social networking plans, the paper is an interesting read for anyone interested in the social web and the online environment as a whole.
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