Google, Yahoo Upgrading Their Social Networks? - Google Socialstream
(Page 4 of 4 )
Socialstream is a project that was sponsored by Google at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. The point of the project was to “Rethink and reinvent online social networking,” according to its home page. The initial idea was to improve Orkut, but naturally the project took things further than that.
As the site explains, “After initial brainstorming and research we chose to focus on the effects of a new model for online social networking: a unified social network that, as a service, provides social data to many other applications.” In other words, the idea behind Socialstream is that a user could participate in many different social networks through one place, perhaps even one unified interface.
If launched, then, Socialstream would act rather like a social network aggregator. Frankly, the idea sounds wonderful. I’m not exactly promiscuous when it comes to social networks, but I considered myself a member of three very different online social networks before writing this article, and I just joined two more. In case you were wondering, I’m not counting MySpace or Facebook, because I don’t currently belong to either one. Socialstream could help bring some sanity to the lives of online social butterflies!
It’s more than just a matter of aggregating content, however; Socialstream is also about presentation. Users like to interact with their data in different ways, so Socialstream offers “a timeline and content overview that provides serendipitous exploration of content, as well as a contact list that provides a structured list of all unread content updates.”
Socialstream offers a number of other interesting features. Users can share content across any participating network, handling “photos, blogs, video, audio, events, and many forms of structured data.” The aggregation feature makes it easy to see all of your posts and track comments regardless of where they were made. And for those who have technophobic friends who might want to participate if all the work was done for them, “Socialstream allows members to send out a starter account template pre-populated with specified contacts.” This gets around the off-putting feeling of joining a network where you don’t know anybody (or only one or two people).
It sounds great; when will it become real, or at least go into public beta? It might be a while. A Google spokesperson said that “The Socialstream concept was created by Carnegie Mellon students as a result of their research into social networking. The project that led to the Socialstream concept concluded in 2006, and it is not part of any current product roadmap.” On the other hand, Red Herring reported that one of the students on the project, J. Nicholas Jitkoff, has been hired at Google. I have a feeling this is not the last we’ll see of Socialstream.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
