You Have 0 Friends vs You Follow The Whole World

Symmetric, asymmetric, circles, lists, groups... The list (or should I say circle?) goes on. Big gorillas of social networking go bananas trying to convince us how their sharing models are most realistic and natural. And, as you may know, the latest spectacle involving Google+ and Facebook caught us working just on that - Dolphin's "friends" functionality. Ok, let's play this one...

Act 1. Understanding the commotion.

The small world of social networks is divided into two camps. In one camp they think that connections need to be approved. In another they think that announcing connections is enough. Both camps live happily (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) doing what they do for people using them for different purposes. 

Now, a new colorful participant arrived and confused that precious balance. Google+ is presented as an alternative to Facebook (or clone, even) but somehow using one-way, asymmetric connections model. Moreover, unlike Twitter it can be used for private sharing. 

Well, if you try to imagine how it would work outside of Internet (if you still can), that would be quite a natural choice - we can call whoever we want a Part-Time Lover and a Full-Time Friend. Definitions and attributions are all up to us. Confirmation is not required.

Act 2. Unless...

... unless someone actually asks for a confirmation. Oftentimes connections are challenged, or doubted. So, likes of Facebook decided to remove that uncertainty by required confirmations. Now nobody would doubt that that rusty nutty Mater is a friend of the shiny Lightning McQueen. How cool is that!

Asymmetric connections are realistic, allright. The problem is that they are not real anyway, so they don't HAVE to be realistic. It's like those "realistic" porn videos - nice, but still porn. 

Now don't get me wrong. I, personally, much prefer the simplicity of one-way connections, but I refuse to believe in justifications of this choice based on "real life" modelling.

Act 3. I call bullshit. 

Online social networks are not real life social networks. They are a new phenomenon born from an egg of a computer and spermatozoids of real-life. They are a different beast altogether. SNS pundits could argue their guts out about how social networking actually works - it still won't matter. It's all about how ONLINE social networking is expected to work.

Ever wondered why Facebook has 750 million active users? Because the way it works actually makes sense for many. In fact most are still a lot more confused with much simpler Twitter! Why is that?

The catch is that Internet isn't new. Not for SNS taget audience anyhow. Friendster, MySpace and Facebook successively formed a certain image of how "friends" thing works online. It is a part of our life now. And, a case could be made that those nifty confirmations are an example of smart leveraging of technology. Similar to how we don't put our emails into envelopes and use those very "unrealistic" CCs and BCCs.

So, please don't rush into ditching confirmations. 

Act 4. Where's BoonEx at it?

At this stage I strongly believe that both ways are good. One may work for a specific site better than another. And we're making sure that Dolphin will support either one or both. After a few days of head-scratching we think we have a universal model that should work for symmetrical and asymmetrical connections, support sharing groups (Circles AND Lists) and may be selectively adjusted for specific needs of your community sites.

Act 5. Round of applause. 

I know, I know... this one is only coming when you get to "lick the buttons". And, you absolutely need to know exactly (or approximately-exactly) when. 

The only update so far is this:

Dolphin 7.0.7 is almost ready - we're integrating that permissions control lists modification from AntonLV; just finished with iPhone App upgrade (3rd-party "apps" support); and now work on Android App. A week or so to go.

Dolphin 8 - what you see in Trac isn't all, but we do move slowly now - mostly due to extensive research and planning. We're dying to show you what we've got, but it's not time yet. Hey, it is worth the wait.

p.s. If I could, I'd put the whole world into my private "Friends" circle and would require a confirmation.

p.p.s. On second thought, confirmaiton would only be an act of attention seeking, since I'd share my updates with unconfirmed friends anyway.

p.p.p.s These P.S.s  look lame in blog posts and emails and are OK in "real" letters. Why? Because computer technology allows you to go back and freaking write what you forgot to write in the main letter body. So, no need to pull the "how it work in real life" stunt.