Social-network analyst Valdis Krebs spoke at the most recent PopTech conference about the top ten social networking trends.  No podcast yet, but Wired does give an overview of some of his research, which looks at how networks added to steroid use in baseball and how networks narrow our focus rather than celebrate diversity:

According to Krebs, [the] insight that a social network creates a pseudo-truth that overrides real, objective truth, can help explain why pack mentality dominates the web.

Using the current election as a model, Krebs says that the internet does not bring people with different ideas together. Instead, people seek out groups with similar ideologies, which makes them less prone to objective, flexible thinking. And no matter how extreme the idea, there’s someone out there on the web who will build a forum around it.

Psychological research has shown that when people find their “political mirrors,” they immediately build clusters around their ideas. This is why politicians’ use of confrontational language like, “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists,” seems to work.

But Krebs sees the positive side of social networks as well. He believes that serious analysis of networks can be used constructively from the outside. The key, he says, is identifying the strong individuals or groups that can lead to group-thinking shifts.

For example, analyzing the rise of the iPod can be used by other companies to chip away at Apple’s dominance.

When Apple released the iPod, there were other MP3 players with better audio or a cheaper price. But Apple created a network by connecting groups through an easy operating system and with marketing.

[...]

In the immediate future, Krebs sees social networks facing a decidedly human problem. They need to find a compromise between the seemingly infinite number of network connections and the limited interaction capacity of human beings.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Research, Social Media.