Evolving the Social Network

arantius writes "An article on BottomQuark points to a new development: Here's a story about a new start-up Huminity, referred to as the technology of the year. The software they produce combines instant messaging, chat, and social networking. After burning through over $30k of personal funds, the team has now raised millions for their company. We've heard about Friendster recently, but somehow this seems more interesting." Jamie adds: Social networking was in the news recently because this patent apparently covers much of it. It was bought for $700K by the two underdogs and may be used to beat up on Friendster. Don't worry, the guy who wrote Slashdot's friend-of-friend code doesn't think we're affected :)

More interesting than Trendster?

How can this be more interesting that Friensdter? A network of friends that cost the companies millions of dollars in bandwidth and java development but returns zero profits!

No but seriously, is this DOT COM ERA part 2?

--
Tired of spammers? Kill them all [si20.com]! Let the irony of this sig sort 'em out.

What?

And exactly what is Social Networking? Nothing linked to from here seems to explain, at least without paying Business 2.0 for a subscription.

And for us...

And, for /.ers, we'll have anti-social networking (esp. for the gnaa, goatse.cx, penisbird, and tubgirl trolls :-)

Some network

Apparently, the only social network they recognize is the one amongst windows users. Well, I guess there's always slashdot...

windows only.

there doesnt seem to be a linux version available, I guess this means that linux users have all of the friends and IM they could ever need... seriously though, it really isnt too much more work to make a linux frontend to a network backend. I guess we will just have to wait for the next major version of gaim.

performance

If Huminity can beat the performance (or lack of it) for services like Friendster, I'd give it my vote. I think I have 14 people in my "friends" list on Friendster, and a Personal Network of nearly 400,000, and it is almost entirely impossible to do just about anything within the service. Sometimes, I can't even login without a browser timeout. Huminity might be able to do really well if they can get decent performance, or even just perceived performance through the use of caching tricks, saved data, etc.

This new technolgy is not very helpful ...

to the exceedingly anti-social. Don't we deserve some programming effort too?

Dork out

With cell phones more available to teenagers, and the teenagers that get em being cool... The number of people a single person has contact with is greater.

People have a larger pool of people to interact with now than say 20 years ago. Especially with population growth.

The cultures that exist are more conforming, and reach more people across a larger area.

You can totally become a statistics nerd charting the reasons that there are skateboarding chicks now, but 10 years ago, skateboarders were skatefags.

Network of friends = useless?

How does knowing whose friend is whose help me make friends? Really, it is just a complicated, expensive way of saying, "here are some people. Maybe you'll get along, maybe you won't, but your friend knows them."
In reality, if I don't have many friends, I won't have many friends of friends, and if I have a lot of friends, why would I need this service? Therefore, it will end up a network of 1:1 connections.

But what..

is the reality of the product they have created?

Is it all the innovative compared to other solutions?

Flash in the pan if you ask me.

Blogzine [blogzine.net]
Fortress of Insanity [homeunix.org]

friend of friend

isn't the friend of friend code just a single SQL query?

restricting access to data reports based on patents as a business model is dumb. actually, i think i'm going to go patent that now.

Social cost of not having social appraisal

Hasn't some fairly high-profile company (MS ?) recently dumped online forums as too risky to have on their books ? In an ever-more-litigious society you have to wonder how it'll pan out if it turns out 'drugrunners-R-us' have been using you as a common carrier. Are you really a common carrier ? Really ? Sure ?

The problem with "recommend a friend" is that it's too close to "recommend a fiend" for comfort. You really have no web of trust - it's all what X says about A says about C ... K.

I'm just about the most anti-regulation-on-the-net person you'll meet (ask my MP :-) but cigarettes in the UK carry large signs saying things like "You will die early if you smoke these cigarettes". It might be useful to require at least a passing familiarity with the dangers to anyone (not just the kids :-) using these sites.

By the way, I realise that 99% of the forums our there are perfectly benign. I'm happy with that. It's the others I'm a little concerned over. That passing familiarity might in fact help those who stop their children from using a computer because "it's dangerous". It's not. But you don't walk down a street late at night dressed in not very much if you're a woman. The internet can be a very dark street, and not just for women.

Simon.

Patent is bogus

I really don't think Friendster is going to have a problem, as it is virtually the same product as Sixdegrees was in 1997, except Sixdegrees didn't have the dating angle.

The successor of ICQ

It seems these guys built a hell of software and it works agazing. Looks like after several years of having nothing interesting as a successor to ICQ, Napster at all... these guys come. GOOD LUCK and bring a version to Linux! :)

Unnecessarily complex

A social network is nothing more than a group of people. Well, at least that's what it sounds like HERE. [google.com]

Prove me wrong.

Something else

What bothers me is that all this technology is slowly forcing us to stay inside, away from human contact.

Whatever happened to taking the dog for a walk and talking to woman? Do men and women of today feel the only way to talk is hiding in some online forum? Are we slowly turning into a milky white skin-toned people?

No thanks.

1. I've never heard of a piece of software that does this sort of thing, and wonder why it would ever exist in the first place (other than just for the novelty of it).

2. Even if it is just for fun, why are they charging you to search through it?

All features of the Huminity software are completely free apart from the "Search Path" using free-text, which is provided at an economical yearly subscription price of $28.

3. If they can't even create a website that can be viewed in anything other than the latest M$ browser [ditto for their DEMO], I don't think I'd trust their software running on my computer anways.

A paradigm shift in human communication

"Navigating 6 degrees of communication with Huminity's Technology of the Year represents a complete paradigm shift regarding the nature of the net and human social interaction. Exploding the boundaries of what we've know as 'community' thus far in human evolution..."

Admit it, you miss Katz, just a little bit.

:]

Not decentralizalised, No legacy support

A real online "social network" would not run on a central server.

A real online "social network" would also allow you to integrate friends lists from places like SlashDot, ICQ and even use lists of mobile phone numbers. And use them in a way that does not give anyone one person or company access to your social network's structure.

Prior art?

Hmmmm, replace the word "database" with the word "list". Don't the lists from various trading cartels over the centuries constitute prior art? I mean, if nothing else, the mafia should have a much strong claim for keeping databases of "friends" and their "friends".

Re:Prior art?

Drug dealing has followed this protocol ever since the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914. The diference is that the database is decentralized and either committed to human memory or stored in an encrypted form.

Basically, to form a new hookup you must be introduced to a dealer by someone whom the dealer already trusts. The edges of the networks are called "runners", and can be found on streetcorners and in dance clubs. Retail and wholesale distribution follows a similar pattern.

When the protocol breaks down, particularly due to personnel security issues, bullets fly. Otherwise it works pretty well!

Download vs Web

The thing I like about Friendster is that there is no download and it is accessible from anywhere - doesn't matter what software you have, what browser you use, what OS you are using, or most importantly where you are when you want to check your friends list. If Huminity could have it all on the web (with Java chat clients like all the other chat services provide), they would get my vote. Until then, I will stick to the service for which I don't have to do anything to use but sign up.

Z

Needs Critical Mass

Reminds me of sixdegrees.

The problem with these systems is that the only work if all your friends, and friend's friends are playing.

This will be successful when some service such as Yahoo or MSN provide the functionality to their already huge memberships.

is it in beta still?

At least it is not in perpetual beta like some other networking idea....

Obviously these guys don't spend much time online

Quote from their website: " We believe the Internet's greatness is the interaction it brings between people " Spend a few days browsing forums, and even post to a few, and you quickly realize there are a lot of people out there you have no need to get to know better. If you need the processing power of a gigahertz processor to make friends, you are in a world of trouble once you step away from your computer. Just MHO.

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

This very same story was posted to Kuro5hin's [kuro5hin.org] queue about a week ago -- right down to the ridiculous "social networking has evolved" meme -- and voted down as a blatant advertising plug. Below is a copy of my post to the topic while it was still in the voting queue; it's still appropriate today:

From Huminity's site:

Contacts are notified by a one-time e-mail notification about their inclusion in the Huminity network. We see it as our obligation to notify contacts of their inclusion in the network and allow them at their own will to be delisted. Though this item is sometimes considered wrongly as SPAM by users and contacts, we think that it would be inconceivable NOT to notify contacts about their inclusion, even by their friends.

"It's inconceivable to us that people wouldn't want to know about our valuable service!" How very self-serving. Couple this with the fact that:

• You have to download a custom application whose behavior and security implications are unknown, and,
• You must provide contact data for five people before you're allowed to browse the network.

And you begin to see why I'm seriously disinterested in trying it out.

When evaluating services like this, I want to see who's already there. I want to do this without calling attention to myself or anyone else. If I like what I see, then I'll participate further -- fill out a profile, hook up to already-registered friends, tell other people about it, etc. Forcing me to offer up five contacts as tribute violates this principle.

Friendster gets this part right: You can participate as much or as little as you want, and Friendster contacts your unregistered friends only when you explicitly direct it to. In this respect, Friendster operates as a service, whereas Huminity has the patina of yet another email harvesting operation, in the same light as those someone-has-a-crush-on-you sites.

No sale, guys.

Schwab

New?

I've known about (and used, once or twice) Huminity for well over a year. The basic idea rocks. However: 0. No chatroom. 1. Useless info on most people 2. Doesn't have the critical mass of users to truly be useful. Finding paths to groups of users can be a pain. 3. Windoze only, last I looked. That said, I'd love to see a OSS version of this. Perhaps built around GnuPG so that messages could be encrypted and your web of trust shows up as your "network." This kind of graphical display of webs of trust would go far in promoting better webs of trust. It would likely avoid patent issues, too, since if they do have a patent, it would cover using databases, not encryption keys. Also, Having users show up as interconnected stars in an 3D OpenGL starfield would be very cool, with very connected users being galaxy centers. All in all, though, Huminity could be very useful, if the userbase ever got big enough, and they managed to squash a few glaring flaws.

What we really need...

is internet liquor, something that makes you and other people seem wittier and more atractive online than you or they are in real life. You could call it eGoggles, and make it like a forum, only allow people to select questions and responses from a list of quotes by really witty people, and avatars of really attractive people. Then you might have something.

Competition with Huminity

For context here's a few thingies that offer that friend-network action: Friendster [friendster.com]
No download, runs anywhere. Kinda simplistic, users stop logging in.

Tribe [tribe.net]
No download, runs anywhere. More nerdy, uemphasis on freedom of use, discussion groups. Supports lots of pictures.

MySpace [myspace.com]
No download, runs anywhere. Supports restricted blogs, popularity contests, 10 pics. Does not emphasize actual RL friendship dynamics.

Friend of a Friend [foaf-project.org]
Open standard for creting friendster-like network apps. Used by PeepAgg [www.peopleaggregator.com] to build OSS system.

There are more, and I'd love to see replies with links to this rapidly growing class of services/apps, with brief descriptions attached. Thanks

Money, money, money.

So I read "the team has now raised millions for their company." Yeah right, that's why they are living in t-shirt hell. [huminity.com]

Six Degrees

Six Degrees had a good thing going for a while, but they messed it up by rewarding people to lie about the number of contacts they had.

Initially I had recruited a number of colleagues, former bosses, and former professors to that network, but I really felt embarassed of having done so after SixDegrees started giving away CD players and prizes for expanding ones network. Eventually, many people started listing thousands of worthless contacts in their profiles and the network became completely useless as a professional networking tool.

Stupid

Gee, if I don't already have 5 contacts I can't register and be part of the network? Great. Thanks. That will help me find friends. Jerks.

Social networking, eh?

Wow ... imagine, using computers to connect people to each other!

I wonder if, at any time in the last 25 years, they've seen a BBS.

Call me anti-social but...

I don't know if I want to be this available. Do I really want a friend of my cousin's friend to IM me in the middle of some project to ask if I like Justin Timberlake too? There's a reason I have Windows messenger configured to ask me before somebody is allowed to add me to their buddy list and contact me.

I suspect that this is going to end up dominated by 16-year old girls and the 23-year old guys who used to hang out at the Dairy Queen hoping to meet them.

Oh, and the 54-year old men who like to pretend to be 16-year old girls on the Internet.

And FBI agents.

-Coach- (the cyber-cynic)

HA! You brought it up - friend of friend code.

I've often wished I could add a small note (ala ebay feedback or slashdot url) of why I made someone a friend or foe.

This friend/foe system would be far more usable if there were some way of knowing why I made someone a pal two years ago, and if they continue to deserve that 'honor'.

In addition, it would probably benefit those who are foed to know what the reason was. Like "teamhasnoi - foed for making fun of republicans". I would then see that republicans still have no sense of humor, and act accordingly.

While we're on the subject (and ontopic, thanks Jamie), I've noticed that all of my freaks never post. I think the most posting a freak has done is 650 some comments. All the rest hover around one hundred or less, and most haven't filled a page of 24.

And not to swing completly off-topic, but why is a funny mod not worth karma? It would seem to me that to be *truly* funny, your post has to be interesting, insightful, sometimes informative, flamebait, and trolling at the same time. That sounds smart to me, not 'smart-ass'.

What do I know though, I subscribed.

The solution to Friendster's database problems

(I can't take credit for this. My brother wrote it)

I think I've come up with a system which will
solve Friendster's database problems:

First you get 2500 chimpanzees, and arrange them
in a 50x50 grid. Each monkey is sitting in front
of a chute which dispenses ripe bananas. Whenever
the Friendster server needs to retrieve a piece
of data, bananas will be dispensed across the
grid in a pattern that represents the parameters
of that database query. Monkeys who do not get
bananas will begin flinging feces at the monkeys
who do get them, and an array of overhead
cameras, connected to an advanced video analysis
system, will extrapolate the vectors and
distribution of said feces.

In another room, these vectors are fed directly
into the cerebral cortex of a stoned teenager in
a Slipknot T-shirt, who is playing Excitebike.
His NES, which has been augmented with
sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms
and has achieved consciousness, uses the input
from the game controller to infer the appropriate
response to the database query, and
telepathically transmits this information to Miss
Cleo.

At this point the user will be prompted to call
Miss Cleo, who will tell them the answer in
highly inauthentic Jamaican patois. This will
cost $2.99 per minute, but there will be several
Kingston rude bwoys standing by Miss Cleo who
will roll 3d6 every time someone calls. If the
result is less than Miss Cleo's saving throw, the
rude bwoys will gang-rape her at knifepoint.

I think this will be a much more efficient system
than whatever the fuck they're doing now.

Pricacy? Click here!

Ungh. Anything with "Click here! It's FREE!" (in blatant colours) and wants to chart my social network makes me very suspicious...

No matter how ingenious and useful the technology is, it won't get my -- and probably quite a few other users' -- trust before it is presented in a more credible manner. And before it gets the trust of a considerable user base, the system isn't considerably useful, now is it? (ok, so i know the system already has a considerable user base, but so does Kazaa, and look what happened to them).

~llauren

Semantic Web FOAF

I have gone on to create a basic [kjernsmo.net] FOAF-file [foaf-project.org]. That's Semantic Web vaporware project. Well, it's not vaporware, since it works, and it is pretty cool. There's even SlashFoaf [rdfweb.org], so create your FOAF RDF today!

Gee, it will be bigger than theglobe.com!!

1999 dotcom, four years too late.

Possible business uses

While it is hard to imagine why someone would want to be exposed in this kind of public network, I can imagine its uses as a business or social tool in a closed network. In The Sims Online, which is a closed network, a similar tool is quite useful, but that's only a pretend world.

In the real world, I could imagine its use for something like ediets.com, as a closed network. Although the people are real, they are using handles and their personal info is protected. At the same time, they are quite involved in making friends within the network for emotional support. Similarly, I am sure there are business based on suppliers, etc, who could use such a thing for their intranet.

In this context it could be quite useful. However, I agree completely that it must be a non-download-based service, working directly from your browser.

I don't think it matters that it works only with IE for most uses. I use Mozilla, but let's face it -- for some sites I need IE so I have that on my computer too. It would be too inconvenient for most of our lives to stand on principle and never view sites that are IE biased.

Beware!

These bastards emailed everyone in my contacts to spam them about joining their service. They neither asked me nor told me.

Not just uncool, but lame and unprofessional, and in some cases this was more than a little embarassing.

Re:That patent is illogical.

We are since we are under slashdot effect bare with us :). Hope you will enjoy the Huminity software.

The Huminity team

Nice, sites now have Slashdot protection.

Re:FP

FP After loooong time :)

you must be using friendster.

Relations between tables in an RDBM

This patent deserves its spot in the top of the list of patent abusers. Essentially this is a patent for defining a relation between tables in a relational database...uh, isn't that the way a relational database works? This is not a patent for the table design, but for the idea of having a relation between tables.

I suspect that there is a great deal of prior art of databases with defined relations between people.

Come to think of it, all I have to do is whip out my handy black book with the names the hot babes I knew in school. ahhhg, come to think of it, this patent implies that I would have to be included in the black books of the hot babes to be considered a friend...

damn.

This post is illogical.

Because all your posts are illogical.

By the way, I am eagerly awaiting an intelligent response to my reply in this thread [slashdot.org].

Hilarious ...

You post a goatse.cx link and get modded Insightful ... You should get a lottery ticket today ...