Friends in Common App
March 8th, 2009You know the 6 degrees of separation rule.
It is even smaller online. In New Zealand apparently it’s 2 degrees of separation to everyone. If two people are on Twitter or LinkedIn I would guess most people would be 2 maybe 3 degrees of separation (especially for larger networks).
I would like a quick app, I could load up my Twitter + LinkedIn (Facebook for others) and it analyses my networks and theirs (first level only).
Then all i do is enter a name, it searches those, and lets me know who I know someone through.
It would be fantastic! At a conference I could put someones name in see if I know someone they do, instant conversation starter. Someone pitching to me, same deal.
The world is all about relationships, someone please build this. Give me this app now!
It would make social interactions such a breeze.
Tags: degrees of separation, monday ideas post, networking, relationships
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 9:09 pm. 
March 8th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Great idea, my vote for someone to build this too 😉
I find LinkedIn so frustrating when it tells me I know someone via my connections, but doesn’t show me the paths of connections.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Good idea. Taking it a bit further…
Wouldn’t it be great to have a CRM system that shows you how you’re connected with each of your contacts, (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc) and gathers together all your interactions with them through those platforms. And that plugs into Google mail.
As well as seeing how you know someone else 🙂
March 8th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
The challenge I see it that we all have aliases and compartmentalize our contacts because we are actually many different things to different people. The identity owner needs to control who can identify them and what as.
e.g. many people like to keep their linkedin profile disconnected from their facebook profile depending on who they are on each.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
There are a couple of apps for the Salesforce CRM which start to go down this road with Facebook. Definitely has more potential.
Google’s Social Graph API could be used to build something along these lines too.
http://socialgraph-resources.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/findcontacts.html
March 8th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
@Tony For sure, but it would simply leverage the ‘networks’ you have already permitted.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
http://www.tweetfriends.com/
It’s nice and easy for twitter since all of the data is exposed by their API. There’s similar stuff for Facebook but my understanding is they don’t work so well because you can only ‘see’ other people who have also authorized the app.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Freaky! I’ve been thinking about exactly this for several weeks now in support of a little ‘connectedness’ vision I’m working on! I really do need to stop trying to get it perfect and go for it! (Enigmatic post, I know!)