LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman at Graphing Social Patterns
I had a chance to attend the opening session of "Graphing Social Patterns" where Reid Hoffman gave the keynote presentation on the business aspects of social networking. Reid's presentation covered three key observations and themes (after the jump).
Three key themes covered during Reid's keynote:
1. Social Networks and Platforms
2. Social Networks and Professional Networks
3. What does the social platform mean for the evolution of the web?
The first part of Reid's presentation covered the evolution of social networking platforms, starting in 2003, from features to applications to the current concept of a platform. Suitable examples would range from early pure-play social networks that had the ability to hack in "widgets" to platforms that allowed for building any type of social network and finally a platform that's built on a broad social graph. Social networks embodies key data for utilitarian applications and hence its appropriateness as a platform in itself.
Reid then delved into the specific nature of pure-play social networking sites and the intricate differences between them and pure-play professional networking sites by highlighting specific examples of usage. For e.g. try a comparative search for names or specific keywords (like "open source expert") or maybe just searching for company connections. Other suitable comparisons between social and professional networks would be knowledge intensive features like Answers, Services or Jobs. The last few sections of the keynote covered areas related to the future possibilities, limitations, and an economic analysis of platforms. For further coverage on Reid's keynote at the "Graphing Social Patterns" conference, please check out either TechMeme or Dan Farber's Zdnet coverage.
Other LinkedIn blog posts you may find interesting (Subscribe to the LinkedIn Blog):
* Reid Hoffman on Business Week's 25 Web Influencers
* The LinkedIn API opportunity by Lucian Beebe
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Graphing Social Patterns is a social networking conference organized by startup advisor, angel investor and conference chairperson Dave McClure. The event continues for another day and features the who's who of the social networking thought leadership community including Tim O'Reilly, Dave Morin, Danny Sullivan, Charlene Li, Mike Arrington and more.