This is not a social graph

The debate that agitated the tech blogsphere yesterday was fascinating. You will find its traces on techmeme.

For some reason, the discussion reminds me of Magritte's piece "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (this is not a pipe) that tells us about the treachery of images.

Basically, the ever-blunt Dave Winer wrote a blog where he considered that bloggers should avoid "sounding like a monkey" and realize that what they usually consider a "social graph" is just a graph, and not an actual "social graph" (see figure to the left).

Therefore, according to Winer, we should stop calling social graphs social graphs (if you follow me / him) but, rather, social networks. To Winer, the denomination of social network has the advantage of avoiding all confusion.

That so many tech bloggers picked on the post and that it became the number one item on tech.meme is quite surprising to me. Part of all the excitement came from the fact that it was a slow week-end, even for the Silicon Valley. Yet, the discussion showed one blogger, Winer, asserting his authority based on his knowledge and expertise, and other bloggers defining themselves with regard to this knowledge. Some bloggers, such as Alec Saunders, opposed Winer's view, and there opposition was quite theoretical, having to do with the role of the internet in general (and bloggers in particular) for the public: should it be to echo celebrity gossip or to educate others?

Whatever one's position on the debate (and we may find its substance razor-thin), in the end, a social graph is not a social graph: it is a concept and a foundation for identity.