On Demand

We are moving towards a world in which every movie, song or book is available to you on demand, instantly and at a reasonable price. In such a world, the biggest question for you is "what should I demand next"?

This is where the magic word "social" comes in, in most cases meaning just your good old friends. I know many people theses days that shun this word, staying off the mass market social networks as well as niche communities. In most cases these people state that they have nothing to gain from the lame online social interaction and they are way better off in the old fashioned, dark and dusty whiskey bars.

And I heartily agree, but...

In the 'on demand' world, social networks, in the wide sense, are the main demand drivers using a wide arsenal of technologies and methods to help you determine what you should demand next. I would like to talk about two methods that are used either separately or together I will call "recommendations" and "activity" based social demand models.

The "recommendations" model allows you to actively recommend someone you consider a friend some product or service and waits for the friend to pick it up counting on existing level of trust between you. Do not mix this with anonymous statistical recommendations (also sometimes effective) that are used in the likes of Amazon and Netflix and typically having the form of: "people who bought X also bought Y". I am not talking about those, though they undoubtedly have their place under the sun.

The "activity" model is based on your ability to watch your friends actions and find interesting things that they have done lately to follow on. Though it might seem like this has anything to do with the latest advancements in web technologies that allow and encourage everyone to open their life to the web, it is something that has been going on forever. Effectively, every time you tell your friends about something you did ("I went to the Zoo last Monday") and you express your opinion about it ("I loved it, the zebras are so cute"), you provide an opportunity for your friends to perform the same activity and build up their expectations for it.

The main difference between the models is that the first demands an action to come from the side of the recommender and the second uses the nosiness of the potential recommendees. Both models can be used together as they indeed are in Facebook and Boxee, the social media center. The latest success of follower based services such as the Twitter, as well as the good old blogs and live journals are all points to the case.