The Social Web:To Graph or Not to Graph?

Kevin BradshawCEO/Founder, Zendit

Turing Festival, EdinburghAugust 2011

About Zendit

• Formed 2009• Previous : i-play, PlayPhone,

Limewire, Buzzd• Digital engagement products• Cloud platform• Services on all digital devices• Self-funded and profitable (almost)

Quiz:Describe Facebook,

without using the words“social” or “network”

Disclaimer

• I’m 41 with a wife and a 2-year old• I’m generally a bit grumpy anyway• Have been in tech startups for 15 years• First company sold for $100M• But I didn’t get much of it• All of it has gone back into other startups• Start-ups are really hard, then Google

does it• It’s lunchtime and I’m hungry too

Alternate titles

Facebook:Are we “friends” now?

LinkedIn: Is this networking?

Twitter: Is that pseudo-code?

Google+: Most people I know are squares,

they don’t fit into circles.

Suggested Circles

• People Who Just Woke Up

And Are Overly Optimistic

About What The Day Holds

For Them

• Inexplicably Shirtless Profile Picture People

• Bible Quoting Relatives

• “Tao of Pooh” Quoting

Relatives

• Girls Who Link To Every Cat Video In The History Of The Internet

• TGIF! Dude• Old High-school Friends

You Wouldn’t Recognize If They Were Sitting Next To You

• Relatives Who Quote Anything

• Anyone Who Quotes Anything

Source : WSJ and Author

What is the social graph?

• Exposing connections connections–Who follows you on Twitter and who follows

them–Who’s your friend on Facebook and who are

their friends

• Exposing connections connections content–What’s on your friends wall?

• Billions of $ bet that this is valuable• Is it?

We want to talkBut we are not having

conversations

Opinions

• Many social networks are not very social, they are just marketing channels – personal or corporate

• We’re mostly lonely• Or we are looking for endorsement of

opinion• Unlikely to spend time with these people in

real-life• Don’t care about my friends friends• Don’t want to follow my toothpaste on

Facebook, it seems a bit silly

Directions

• Ad-hoc groups and topics• Non-persistent relationships• Easier (by-product) OR harder (no

broadcasting) to drive influence• Contextual – especially local• Productive – especially rewarding

A couple of new services

Zendit Beerdog

Zendit: Ad-hoc, local, contextual, “harder”

• No social graph– no wall– no friends– no broadcasting

• Find or start a conversation nearby• Public or private – and changeable• Add people, add stuff – images, video and

chat• You need to choose who is in a

conversation• You can remove a user from a

conversation

Splash

Personal

Nearby

Conversation

Options

Beerdog:Local, focused, “easier”, rewaring

• I want a beer• I want it now• It had better be good• My friends know about beer, I’ll see what

they are drinking and where• I am totally uninterested in anything else

right now, get me a beer

Splash

Activity

Beer

Dog

Summary

• Growth of major social networks based on the social graph

• But I don’t find them very social and there’s a question over how valuable the graph is

• Interesting services coming which do and don’t use a graph

• Interest-focused, ad-hoc, location-aware services are emerging