02 Response: The pleasures and perils of asymmetric networking (re:"Social Media and Me")
In response to Ceci's post "Social Media and Me," I would like to highlight a contrast between Facebook ("is almost like a reflex to me, but more to keep up with certain friends who are quite active on it") and Twitter (which "is practically a lifeline. This has become a news source for me"), in light of Google+'s beta launch earlier this summer and more recent public opening. At the same time, I want to reframe boyd and Ellison's quite limiting definition last week of social networks as spaces where you can connect to those friends from Real Life with a more holistic approach from an older Donath and boyd paper. Caution: pessimistic technological determinism ahead.
It was not until Google unleashed their surprisingly meager social network that I began to reflect on the structural differences between Twitter and Facebook, namely that of asymmetrical vs. symmetrical ties and how that network structure relates to use. Tech pundits spent all of July arguing about whether Google+ would decimate LinkedIn, outfox Facebook, perhaps wallop Twitter or maybe not. Google users' ability to asymmetrically and automatically 'subscribe' to any other user's updates mirrored Twitter's limitless imperative to 'follow' and its Venn diagram-like superstructure, which limits the spread of updates, appeared to be a reworking of Facebook's underutilized Grouping function. By requiring the user to categorize each new network node as well as similarly-categorize each datum shared, the site combats Facebook's affect of each new friend becoming a liability when many updates are shared with 'friends of friends.'
For me, as well as for Ceci, much of the joie de tweet comes from peeking at the unfiltered thoughts from "favorite celebrities, comedians, [and] writers" which might not be as concise candid or casual on Google+, instead it's more like communicating with our close friends. Google+, in effect, tries to capture both the friend-to-friend social ties of boyd and Ellison’s “social network” and the one-to-many ‘subscriptions’ that are the same mechanism as the “social networking” spaces such as Twitter, blogs and most opt-in marketing. In an earlier piece, boyd and Donath (Public Displays of Connection, 2004) contrast the two models of sharing information and verifying identity and trustworthiness, that of a ‘Balkanified’ site like LinkedIn which avoids “the uncomfortable mixing of too heterogeneous a set of connections ... by emphasizing business connections” and having well-defined limits, versus “a more promising design solution” that essentially follows the system of circles and limited sharing that Google+ encourages.
I’d argue, though, that this mixing of the two networking styles, asymmetrical and all-encompasing with symmetrical and focused, on one site is one of the reasons for the lukewarm barely-exodus to Google+, even after Facebook’s latest round of disruptive UI changes which make it function more like Google+. While Ceci can (well, could) expect her Facebook's Top News feed to have reliable updates from “certain friends who are quite active on it” when I log onto Google+, all I see are a handful of stale updates from some trailblazing friends which have been diluted in a sea of pictures from semi-strangers (mostly photographers from Tumblr) whose names I don’t recognize (due to the real-names policy) and who would not recognize me or even see my own posts. At its best, networks that have both asymetrical and symetrical components (now Google+ AND Facebook) could be a homepage for all updates we want to see on the web, but perhaps a little bit of Balkanization, context and discretion among our networks would not be so bad. At least then we'd have a better idea of what to say, and how.
[If, for some reason you want to join me in the silent abyss which is G+, I'm at: http://gplus.to/ariklick. -Ari]