Tipping of the social graph

This might sounds strange. What is new about talking on the social graph? Well I think there are some interesting developments that can trigger serious steps in the functional use of the social graph.

Interesting for instance is the new function Twitter introduced this week: suggesting friends. For Twitter this is the first service they create out of the knowledge on their profiles. A lot of third parties did stuff before, but you can expect that Twitter should have some advantage with their access to the whole database.

Another interesting new service is that of the Flipboard app on the iPad. A lot is said on that already, but it has certainly a connection to this theme. Flipboard is creating a social magazine out of Facebook and Twitter streams, which is already exciting. I’m still wondering if they do any kind of analysis of my social graphs. It seems so, because I get more stuff than just my stream. I think this will be only more soon.

Of course Facebook and Google are both putting a lot of effort in building the social graph and trying to connect it to our use. The battle of the social graph has just begun. Google seems to place some bets (amongst others) on the social TV experience by making Google TV, while Facebook is about to introduce some location stuff that will shake that market. And Facebook also created their search competitor with their question based service that can benefit highly of the social graph.

The tipping point for the social graph will be in these kind of functional services that are created. You can expect only to see more of this on both sides of the medal: trying to enrich the social graph by connecting it to popular services, and on the other hand popping up of services that use the social graph.