Start-up social networks of any sort easily fall prey to a huge hurdle. Without a strong, active userbase, all the clever design and clear UI in the world can’t make a social product a success. If a user posts a question, shares a photo, or interacts with the product in whatever way the designers intended, and he doesn’t make a social connection, there’s no network.
At SxSW and again at TechCrunch Disrupt, I saw lots of fantastic social applications. At least, I think they were fantastic, it’s hard to tell without a userbase. I think I could use the LiveShare photosharer to create hilarious group photostreams after a party, but without a base of real life friends using the same app, I can’t tell.
New location-based social app Sonar.me, though, takes that into account and works as an add-on over your existing social profiles. Sonar’s goal is social telepathy, an app showing your Facebook and Twitter connections to people around you. You might walk into a party or a conference, and check your phone to see if you share any mutual friends with the strangers in the room.
Sonar’s online-offline integration also leads to a fascinating social question: What’s the etiquette around this new connection? Is it socially acceptable now to walk up to a Sonar connection, and introduce yourself?
If so, what about all the dead weight we’ve got clogging our social networks? You know, your buddy’s ex-girlfriend or an old classmate, someone you wouldn’t unfriend, but someone whose social recommendation is pretty light. A tenuous social connection could be at least a starting point in conversation, a connection between glancing friendship spheres and a badge marking a stranger at a party as one of our kind. Or is mutually knowing a former college hallmate just bringing friend-request spam offline?
Even more importantly, what about the awkward connections this social telepathy might bring? If two of my ex-boyfriends happened to be in the same room, would Sonar intro them as friends of Meg? And then what?
Besides the ability to look for shared Facebook friends with people in your physical location, Sonar will also allow users to find others with shared interests. A shared Twitter follow of @thinkgeek or @gamasutra wouldn’t carry much weight, but a mutual Facebook like of an obscure novel or cult film could cut through the weather-and-traffic side of smalltalk.
We’ve all wondered what to say to an attractive stranger, so a glance at his or her public, shared interests provides instant dating telepathy. Facebook profiles changed dating by providing a quick check of marital status, political affiliation, or other potential dealbreakers. Combined with an app like Sonar, the fundamental questions of dating — Is he single? Is he straight? Is he my type? What would we talk about? — are all answered immediately.
Newfound tech-enabled social telepathy, from apps like Sonar and from social networks in general, is already changing how we meet people and how we connect to others. As new technology is released and becomes commonplace, social networking will continue to change our offline etiquette and social expectations.
