Comments for Is It Time To Retire the 'Social Graph?'

Is It Time To Retire the 'Social Graph?'

2007-09-22T20:42:42Z

Yesterday, when talking with Richard and Marshall about Google's plans to open up many of their services that deal with personal and social information, I made this remark: "Also, as an aside, I'd like to express my severe dislike for the term 'social graph.'"

I first remember hearing about the term "social graph" in May while Mark Zuckerberg was on stage announcing the Facebook Platform. That probably wasn't the first time the term was used, but it seems to be the time it entered our collective conscience and started being used with more regularity. At the time, I remember thinking to myself, "wait, what's a social graph?" It seems I wasn't alone in my confusion. The social graph is a reference to graph theory, which in general, if I understand correctly, models connections between things. There's really nothing wrong with this term, but it's math or computer science phraseology and doesn't do very well as a marketing term, in my opinion.

]]> As Dave Winer points out in a post yesterday, most instances of the term "social graph" floating around the web since May are interchangeable with the term "social network" -- they mean more or less the same thing:

"Now if you showed that diagram to most educated people, they probably would call it a network, and before we talked about social graphs we called them social networks, and you know what -- they're exactly the same thing, and social network is a much less confusing term, so why don't we just stick with it? (Answer: we should, imho.) So if you don't want to sound like an idiot, call a social graph a social network and stand up for your right to understand technology, and make the techies actually do some useful stuff instead of making simple stuff sound complicated." -- Dave Winer

Not everyone agrees with Winer. Robert Scoble posted a response today in which he says that your social network is who you know, while your social graph is who you're connected to based on interests, location, work, etc. "The Social Graph is NOT my social network," Scoble writes. "My Social Network is my friends list. But the Social Graph shows a LOT more than that."

Scoble might be right. Or Winer might be. But semantic arguments aside, I think the first commenter on Scoble's post sums it up nicely:

"When I first heard the term social graph my thought was 'what now?', graph did not resonate at all. It still doesn‚Äôt." -- PXLated

Everyone already understood what a social network was -- it's a term we've been using for years. Everyone knows about networking. When you go schmooze with your peers at a party you're networking, not graphing. Most people don't get "social graph" the way they do "social network."

As Tom Morris, a commenter on Nick Carr's post on the debate says, "The fact is that the phrase 'social network data' describes everything that 'social graph' does without having to explain graph theory to those who don't understand it." Yes! Social graph may be a valuable way to talk about this stuff with mathematicians, but it is still a poor choice as a marketing term. I think it's time we retire it (at least in anything that isn't targeted toward computer scientists) and return to saying social network. How about it?

Comment from Ryan Merket on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:05:35Z

Wow Josh, sounds like a bunch of 'hate'. The term "social graph" was coined by Mark because it was an easy way of saying, "real world types of connections/communicating on the internet." If the man wants to create a new term, I believe he has a right.

Stop whining.

Comment from WahWahWiner on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:07:23Z

All Winer posts go by at a million miles an hour.

Isn't he retiring or something?

Go take up golf in a retirement community already.

Comment from Hashim Warren on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:13:40Z

Why do we even say "social". in the real world my connections are called my "network" and we've been using that simple term even longer!

Comment from B.Ackles on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:25:48Z

"Social Graph" was never a term targeted at the general public. As Catone alluded to, this term is simply technically targeted at mathematicians; as well as Marketing Professionals, Venture Capitalists & Computer Scientists. In contrast "Social Networking" is common phraseology for the web 2.0 user base. Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team are ingenious and highly calculated. This includes how they market their product via verbiage.

Comment from Josh Catone on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:31:05Z

@Ryan: Certainly he has a right (if he even coined the term, there seems to be some dispute about that on the Internet -- I don't really know, and it's kind of irrelevant here). But if the old term means the same thing, is simpler for people to grasp, and is working just fine (and I think all of those are true), then I see no reason to switch.

Anyway, you say:

"The term "social graph" was coined by Mark because it was an easy way of saying, "real world types of connections/communicating on the internet.""

But I'm saying it's not as easy as saying "social network," which is what we already were saying. And if you insist that social network does not encompass all the types of connections that you have within your network (uhh), then as Tom Morris said (see my post), social network data works just fine and doesn't require any added explanation.

I think it's probably likely that social graph was an attempt at a marketing term to differentiate Facebook from competitors. (I.e., "We're not a social network, don't lump up into the same category with MySpace -- we have the social graph, which is better.")

Comment from Josh Catone on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:35:22Z

@B.Ackles: Right. I have no problem with engineers, or people at developer conferences, or in developer wikis talking about the social graph if that term is helpful for them. But when you're pitching to the media or the public, it's a bad idea to use terms that require explanation of mathematical theories that most people have never heard of... especially when simpler terms like social network or social networking data or social connections already exist, and are understood by almost everyone.

Comment from PXLated on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T21:54:10Z

Social Network or Social Network Data are sooo much better.
Graph to most renders a bar chart (or whatever). Even if you plot it all out (interconnections) it's a diagram not a graph to most. Graph will never resonate with but a very few.

Comment from Alexander Sicular on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T22:16:43Z

Josh,

Frankly, you are wrong. I understand you are having difficulty differentiating "network" form "graph" in both real and marketing terms. But lets just turn the clock back to when people did not understand the term "network."

To believe that Mark and his team at Facebook wanted to coin a term simply to be different underestimates the contribution which him and his team have made to this new, yes new, space.

IMHO, evidently "graph" refers to the underpinnings of this concept in mathematical theory and expresses an idea significantly separate from its predecessor, "network." Further, to believe that terminology should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator begs the question that the simple term "social graph" is beyond peoples comprehension. Whether or not 'Marketers' can exploit the new term should be besides the point entirely.

Comment from alan p on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T22:20:35Z

It just causes unnecessary confusion as the nomenclature is already defined - Scale Free, Small World *networks* for example.

For at least 10 years I have known the representation of a social network on paper etc as a Social Network *diagram* (sometimes map) - why is that no longer appropriate?

Comment from Jake on 2007-09-22

2007-09-22T23:08:05Z

Points:

Dave Winer making a case on the basis of 'aw shucks' populism is one for the books: right down the day.

People use 'social graph' instead of 'social network', because social networks now refer to the actual institutions which attempt to record and manipulate information about your social graph.

It's also being used to distinguish between the dumb, weightless network we see on MySpace, Linked In, and to a lesser extent Facebook and to instead point out there's all this information contained in the edges of the graph people have been ignoring.

Comment from David Novakovic on 2007-09-22

2007-09-23T00:29:39Z

Isn't what Scoble described really just a "neighbourhood"? Last.fm has its terminology correct. :)

Comment from Alex Iskold on 2007-09-22

2007-09-23T01:09:03Z

I spent my past life studying graph theory so I weigh in my 2cents here. The thing is that actual social graph that Brad was talking about is a union of all little graphs (yes, neighborhoods David!) inside each social network.

I have to agree that the word graph is way too geeky. Better terms are connections, links, acquaintances. There is no need to pass onto people the fact that its a graph, its a directed graph and there are different kinds of edges. Whats next? We gonna talk about Social DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph)?

Seriously, lets not confuse what the issue is about. It is about WHO OWNS THE INFORMATION. Thats they key thing we need to be battling. To do that effectively, we need to have simple words to describe, like: information about who you know, your connections in each social network needs to owned by you and be portable.

Comment from MikeD on 2007-09-22

2007-09-23T01:44:59Z

And a computer is just an electronic typewriter - why talk about 'compute'? Nobody knows 'compute'. Just call it a typewriter. Everybody knows what a typewriter is and we don't need to know more.

Comment from Susan RoAne on 2007-09-22

2007-09-23T02:15:55Z

Josh,

Found your column an interesting read. I get google alerts on the word ‚Äúschmooze‚Ä? because I used it in How To Work A Room over 18 years ago and had to define it in a Yiddish glossary. Now, it‚Äôs ‚ÄúEnglish‚Ä?.

But the social graph does give a phrase for those in the industry to bandy about. There was a time when we just called it ‚Äúa gathering, A meet and greet, a time to chat or connect or reconnect or the no - host cocktail hour.‚Ä? Giving it a TERM makes it‚Ä?work‚Ä? and takes the social out of the term social network.
Maybe we come up with new terms so we can wow those who invest and those who join.

Thanks for your candor and savvy thoughts. We must stop making everything so complicated that we are losing our social skills ---according the to current communication and social research.

I will remind my clients to NEVER let me use the term social graph in a presentation to my audiences.

Continued Success.

Susan RoAne

Comment from Yihong Ding on 2007-09-22

2007-09-23T05:09:44Z

Well. Social graph or social network, do we really care of the distinction between the two terms? Let them be interchangeable. This is probably the best solution to this debate.

-- Yihong

Comment from Morgan on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T07:54:35Z

I'm all for retiring it, or more accurately treating it with the disdain it deserves, even if only on this blog. I can promise to read here more if it's gone.

I also think it's a stretch to say someone has coined a phrase when there's already a phrase for something. It happens all the time, and the only reasons it could happen is either someone is illiterate and doesn't know the original word, or they are trying to coin a phrase for it's own sake and for their own reputation.

So stick with the pedestrian phrase that makes sense and doesn't require a definition and origin explanation every time. Some other new words and phrases for pre-existing concepts to lose:
'findable' instead of 'obvious' or 'evident', 'offsite' instead of 'meeting', 'consuming' instead of 'using', and on and on and on.

Oh man, the worst is I just saw the phrase 'social graph data' on TC, it's like 'ATM machine' or something.

Oh well, maybe people prefer reading writing like that, I guess maybe it makes this all seem much more cutting edge when words have to be invented just to describe the action.

Comment from Uri Schonfeld on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T12:01:50Z

I tend not to agree that social graph should be retired. I think it is more than just a mathematicians way of defining a social network. It describes the next race of capturing the structure of the global social network and leveraging the internet and graph theory to allow people to manage and utilize their network better. Is that a good sentence or what??!!

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T15:38:36Z

I say new concepts need new descriptive phrases, I'm fine with learning more. This one does grate on the ears a bit, though, and the concepts involved (Identity, Relationships and Attention Data) do need to be understood by general web users so that they can demand change. If there's not a clear way to articulate what's going on, then it user demands will just be expressed as a vague fear, etc. Can we come up with a good phrase to describe the social graph but try again instead of using that particular one? :)

Comment from Fabio on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T21:15:46Z

Sorry but to me when people start discussing about "social graph" vs. "social network" it feels like they have nothing to do.
Are you bored? Take a jog at the park... and stop behave like politicians.

Comment from JB on 2007-09-24

2007-09-24T07:23:26Z

there is a good reason to distingish between social graph an social network. a social network is "something" that exists and a social graph displays this "something" so you can visualise it. in other words: you do have a social network and a social graph is just one of many options to make it easy to understand (you might also use a list, a table or whatever to display you social network)

Comment from Ben Davies on 2007-09-24

2007-09-24T09:06:17Z

It's my understanding that 'social network' is tied to a specific network, for example, my Facebook Social Network is seperate and distinct from my MySpace Social Network.

A Social Graph represents all my social networks mapped together, illustrating the overlaps and similar relationships that exist on different networks.

I think some people are confusing an individuals social network with a individual network's 'social network' (ie. your Facebook social network). It's my understanding that Social Graph is used to differentiate bewteen a Users complete and full graph of relationships and that of an individual network's (website) social network.

Does that make sense?

Comment from See-ming Lee on 2007-09-29

2007-09-29T15:17:03Z

Personally I do think that there is a slight difference between the two:

1. Social networks are the networks on which human socialize to create connections based on common interests.

2. Social graph is the map of these networks. Through the visualization of these networks, connections become clear and it thus become possible to perform analysis.

To give an example so as to clarify things a little bit:

1. A subway system is a network of stations (nodes) and subway tracks (links).

2. A subway map is a visualization of the system, where we are mostly interesting in the nodes and the links. By using a graph, we can focus on, for example, the lines of the station, or we can focus on the distances of the stations, and we can create analysis of how long in general it takes to get from one station to another.

The two are related but their have specific distinctions and are not interchangeable.

Cheers,
See-ming

Comment from chekov on 2007-12-18

2007-12-19T01:51:45Z

What would you call a graphical representation of a social network then (as distinct from the network itself). It's not the same thing as the network - it's just a graph of the network topology.