Brad Feld

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Friend Hierarchy

Jan 14, 2008
Category Technology

Now that I use 267 different social networking tools, I’m confused.  I’ve got so many different "friends", but I don’t know how to differentiate between them.

My "friend" Dave Nolastnamesogoogledoesntindexme recently asked me if I have seen any moves toward private hierarchies of relationships.  Specifically he (and I) want to categorize my "friends" into a hierarchy that I get to create.  One example set might be (lover, buddy, friend, acquaintances, met once, jackass, enemy).  This "friend set" should be user customizable and private.

My head starts to hurt when I think about this across Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Linkedin, Plaxo, Outlook, Gmail, Bebo, Dogster, Shelfari, …)  What a mess.

While I’d love a consolidation layer across all my social network (e.g. I want "one Dave Nolastnamesogoogledoesntindexme object"), I know I’m not going to get that anytime soon.  So – I’ll just settle for being able to create my own special unique proprietary private "friend hierarchy" within each social network tool.