‘Social Network’ v ‘Social Graph’: Am I Getting This?

I just read Stowe Boyd’s very interesting post entitled “Dave McClure is Wrong Continued: Social Network v Social Network.” The crux of Boyd’s argument is that the term ’social network’ — which has been in use since before the Internet was a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye — is a much better way to describe the MyFace phenomenon than ’social graph.’

By contrast, McClure contends that:

i’d still suggest that ’social graph’ is more specific & nuanced than ’social network’ — specifically the idea of a graph (from mathematics graph theory) is a series of nodes connnected by directed vertices with weights/attributes. this is not the typical definition of a social network, which altho similar, is usually just described as my list of friends.

i made the analogy with XML & RSS, as i believe this is a similar situation — RSS is a more specific & nuanced implementation of XML, that emphasizes a standard for content publishing (rather than a more generic structured data standard).

so i disagree the ’social graph’ term is more confusing — in fact, quite the opposite: it’s more specific.

I’ve heard the term ’social graph’ used to describe the indirect benefit to one member of the Facebook sphere from the presence of every other distantly connected individual on the network. The classic example is this:

My friend Bette is on Facebook. So is her friend Tina. Because both Tina and I are on Facebook, Bette is more likely to spend time there, post photos and generally share her content than she would be if either Tina or I were to leave the site.

This benefit to each of Bette’s friends grows in a relatively logarithmic fashion with each additional node on Bette’s graph. That is: the fifth friend that Bette adds benefits her four preceding friends more than the 100th friend benefits the preceding 99.

Obviously this is an overly simplistic model made to describe a phenomenon at its most basic level. But even here, you can see that ’social graph’ describes a central phenomenon within social networks. But it doesn’t describe the entire behavior of a network. And more importantly, it doesn’t describe the mechanisms that facilitate these networks, the features of the mechanisms that limit the development of the networks, and any number of attendant phenomena.

I’m inclined to agree with Boyd on this one. But my agreement is qualified because I see McClure’s point. ‘Social Graph’ does refer to a more specific phenomenon within the larger field of ’social networks,’ just like RSS is a specific implementation of XML. Specificity can be grand, but it doesn’t always capture the whole picture.

What do you guys think? Am I seeing the whole picture here? Or am I missing something crucial?

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