Posted by Naveed on November 18, 2008
Comments (0) Filed under: product description Tags: network conversations

Organizing a person’s contacts and extended social network based on the semantics of the link type lets Careeb develop applications that facilitate better bonding between people.

One such application is Network Conversations. The primary networks on Careeb are School Friends, College Friends, Grad School Friends, Work/Professional Contacts and Family and Relatives.

How to reach? Do this…

My > Networks (Show a list of your Networks) > Click on the link “<X> Conversations and <Y> messages” located under each Network name. X and Y are the number of conversations and messages in that particular Network respectively.

Network Conversations allow people in one Network to communicate with eachother on a common message board. A person belonging to the Network can start a new conversation and attach tags to it. Other people in the Network can then post replies and build the conversation which is displayed as a nested thread.

Some tips on starting conversations in your Networks:

• If you need to make an announcement. Type your message and tag it as ‘announcement‘ or ‘news‘.
• Start a discussion about a movie. Write your review and get reviews from your contacts and network members.
• Share a joke.
• Ask a question.

How else you can use your Network Conversations is only limited by your imagination :)

Posted by Naveed on November 12, 2008
Comments (0) Filed under: product description, semantic networks Tags: content distribution, semantic networks, social web

As we all know, Careeb is a different kind of social network where people are connected through links that carry “structured semantics”.

What is structured semantics?

In conventional social networks, any two people A and B are allowed to link as ‘friend’. As all links are equivalent, there are no semantics here.

In some other models A and B add semantics to the link, like “we met at grad school” or “know eachother through a mutual friend” etc. But how does this help? The semantics here can be anything A and B choose. There is no structure to these semantics. Apparently this is not of much benefit to the users.

At Careeb we let people label their links with one or more of the 6 link types given below:

School Friends, College Friends, Grad School Friends, Work/Business/Professional Contacts, Family and Relatives, Just Friends.

As of now, Careeb users can choose only from the above given link types. Here semantics that links carry are “structured” because they are limited and user are urged to choose from among them only. Mapping the relationships between people in this fashion results in what I call “Semantic Networks“.

Description of a Semantic Network

Let the person A have 10 people linked to him as “Family and Relatives“. Let these 10 people in turn be linked to 15 other people (excluding A) through the same link type (Family and Relatives) and so on…

Think about it for a few seconds and let the idea soak in.

A community or group of people all linked through same link type can be envisioned. Such a community is known as a “Semantic Network”.

Discover related people in your Semantic Network

Weak tie hypothesis says: If A is strongly bonded to both B and C, then the bond between B and C always exists, either weak or strong. Applying this hypothesis to a Careeb semantic network gives interesing results.

Let A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H comprise a College Friends Network (all the links in this network are labeled as “College Friends”).

Let PE(XY) represent the probablity that the bond between X and Y exists. Let PS(XY) represent the probablity that the bond between X and Y is strong.

PE(AE) = 1 (As per weak tie hypothesis)

PS(AE) = 1/2 (equal chance that the tie be weak or strong)

PE(AH) = PS(AE) = 1/2; PS(AH) = PS(AE) X 1/2 = 1/4

PE(CH) = PS(AH) = 1/4

Similarly it can be proved that the probablity of a tie between any two people in a semantic network is greater than zero. The probability that a tie could exist suggests that people you discover in your network are relavant to you and not strangers.

Communicate and share content within your network

Uploading content like videos and photos to a network is more beneficial and comfortable for both content publishers and consumers.

For content consumers: If you want to browse photos uploaded by all of your Work Friends, traditionally you would have to go to each and everyone’s profile. Its a hassle! Semantic Networks make life more easier as you can access all the content uploaded by a particular group of your contacts in one place instead of wandering from profile to profile.

For content publishers: Upload once and reach 10-fold or 50-fold people as compared to uploading to your own Album. People in your network can then forward your content to other networks (based on your privacy restrictions). Your content reaches large number of people without you having to put a lot of effort.

I will post a more elaborate description about content sharing and privacy in the subsequent posts. Meanwhile, login to your Careeb account, invite your contacts, build your networks and experience the network effects :)