This is SCARY brilliant!

If I am a fanatic of anything, it is imagination and strategic thought. I suppose this is why I flipped over backwards when I read this post. It discusses Social Networks as a whole, discusses what they are doing wrong and cites related tools. Very good job! I LOVE THIS MAP! (see below)

Here is a snippet...

In preparation for one of my presentations in San Jose, I've been trying to define the boundaries of Social Networking, rather than simply (and less usefully) trying to define the term. The best way I found to do so is to list the various functionalities (applications) of Social Software by objective, rather than listing the tools themselves by type of content (as Judith Meskill does with her wonderful omnibus directory of current Social Software) or by audience. Most Social Software serves more than one function and has more than one objective, but that doesn't invalidate this as a useful taxonomy for Social Networking -- in fact, by deconstructing the functionality of various Social Software tools we might actually get some insight into what combinations of functionality, when well designed and integrated, make a good product.

What emerged from this effort is a 'Landscape' diagram of Social Networking, shown above. The eight major objectives are:

• Finding people (discovering, rediscovering, or locating them)
• Building directories, network maps and social networks
• Inviting people to join your networks
• Managing access to your networks ("permissioning")
• Connecting with people in your networks (using various media)
• Managing relationships across media (e.g. making the jarring transition from e-mail or weblog-based relationships to voice-to-voice or face-to-face)
• Collaborating with people in your networks...

Click here to read the entire article...

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