ClinkR — The next phase in social networking

ClinkR was born from the belief that simplification of a user’s relations is required in order for the user to leverage it. We at ClinkR believe the importance and necessity of references in any relationship personal or business has not changed. However, an average user’s social networks have become too large, complex and hence too impersonal.

To understand the state of user’s online relationship today it is important to understand its development.

The early social networks for developing references were specific networking events such as doctor conferences for a doctor’s professional relationship, self-help groups, citizen groups and apartment societies for other non-professional needs. Next, came the power of the Internet with its many curated information sites designed to give you context specific knowledge. Networking sites designed to give you an online brand be it business or personal followed.

LinkedIn for those seeking a career change and Facebook for non-professional networking would be examples of the new age networking sites. However, the connections of an average user have quickly grown too large. It is not uncommon for a user to have more than 500 connections or friends. Such large connections are perhaps too large for anyone other than the most advanced user to correctly understand his or her relationships.

It is our belief that the next phase i.e. helping a user leverage his or her network by simplifying and summarising his connections will be here sooner than later.

ClinkR positions its users squarely in this phase. These connections are obtained via — the user’s address book — a powerful repository maintained to stay in touch with his “true” trusted contacts. The belief comes from the fact that the “relationship” was not simply made by sending and accepting a “friend” or “connection” request. A professional or a personal meeting that went sufficiently well for the user probably preceded the addition of the contact to the address book. Furthermore, this repository probably survived numerous phone changes giving them that much needed authenticity.

ClinkR uses this knowledge of the relationship by first making “automatic” connections between two users who have had each other in their phone books. It then adds summarized references for any contact in the address book to help the user with better visibility of his network. Now, the user has access to a relevant contact for his needs and more importantly knows the shared mutual friends — friends he trusts explicitly. We see this form of summarization occurring in other social and business networking sites too. “Mutual friend”, “shared connection” — are synonyms for providing this trust to the relationship with the contact.

ClinkR’s use of a user’s address book also allows the user to connect with the population that is still not connected to the Internet and its plethora of social networking platforms. ClinkR brings this population “online” by making them visible to a user of ClinkR. This ability would be powerful in a developing nation such as India where record numbers of smartphones with Internet capabilities are being sold every year but the user is perhaps not sufficiently sophisticated to benefit from the social networking platforms.

We are able to apply ClinkR’s abilities to develop several scenarios where ClinkR’s core belief provides instantaneous help. For example finding that trusted taxi service. The search for such a service would typically need a Google search, a Facebook post for recommendations and then phone calls to a few friends i.e. at least 4 to 5 steps prior to renting of the service. Replaying the same need with ClinkR would follow this drastically shortened path: It is highly likely that a taxi service would have been used and then saved by one of your friends for later use. ClinkR will find you this service when you search and then provide you a list of friends who have used them. The final step of renting the service would now only be preceded by one or two phone calls to a specific friend to confirm the reliability. It can be seen that ClinkR removes and reduces the uncertainty and the steps required.

Last but not least ClinkR even improves your ability to use your network’s reach by informing you when one of your contacts joins the world of ClinkR.

In summary, ClinkR is a powerful tool that will improve a user’s visibility of his network and then strengthen it by easing the process to find more implicitly trusted contacts.