Dopp Juice Archive

There’s a lot of buzz right know around something called the social graph. This buzz is very geeky, and if you’re not already immersed in geeky conversations about Internet privacy and identity, this buzz might be going over your head. That’s a shame, though, because you probably do care about it.

What’s a Social Graph?

You have lots of contacts. Some are professional colleagues, some are personal friends, some are both of those, and some are more complicated than that. A social graph is a snapshot of who you’re connected to and how. The specifics are super-geeky, so I’m not gonna go any deeper than that.

What’s Happening Now?

Google just released something called the Social Graph API. This is going to make it easier for social networking websites to share information about who you’re connected to. This opens up a huge can of worms in terms of privacy and identity and security and all that fun stuff that the Internet’s been debating since it was born.

How Does This Affect You?

At the moment, it doesn’t. It’s too new. But it’s pushing the borders on what we need to think about when we use social networking websites, and that’s going to matter to you as soon as it gets to your favorite websites. Looking ahead to the not-so-distant future, you should probably prepare yourself for two things:

1) You’re going to have an easier time sharing your “friends list” between your social networking websites without having to give out your email address book. This also means that signing up for a new social networking website won’t be such a headache.

2) You’re going to have a harder time compartmentalizing and obscuring different parts of your life on the Internet. There will still be a place for pseudonym-based anonymity, but with all of these networks talking to each other, it’s going to be harder to hide. So if you’ve got skeletons in your public MySpace closet and you’ve just figured that nobody’s gonna look behind that door, you might wanna go clear those out now.

If this is the first time you’ve heard the sad news, I’m very sorry to break it to you. Heath Ledger died.

But if you’re under the age of 35 and are friends with people who connect with each other on the Internet, I’m guessing you knew within five hours of it happening. And when you did, you might have felt a surge of responsibility to let other people know about this handsome young actor’s unexpected death, because wow, that’s crazy, and since Heath Ledger isn’t usually in the spotlight, maybe your friends didn’t hear about it as fast as you did.

And then you probably sat back and watched the rest of the world notice it, too. Maybe you got text messages about it. It probably showed up in your RSS feed reader multiple times. Maybe you went out to get coffee, and ran into a friend at Starbucks, and the first thing out of their mouth was, “Dude, did you hear Heath Ledger died?” Conversations you overheard on the street turned into games of speculation: Closet drug addict. Being famous is a huge amount of pressure. Did a woman break his heart?

I was shaken out of the stupor when a friend of mine stepped up and called bullshit:

Seems like everyone I’ve spoken with, since ~2 pm this afternoon, has felt compelled to mention – within a couple minutes of saying hello – that Heath Ledger is dead. Likewise for the blogsphere, Twitter tweets, SMS flurries, email one-liners, … etc. I don’t want to seem crass or unsympathetic, and I actually fear coming across as such… But… WTF? … Why this buzz around Ledger among the twentysomethings passing through my day? No one seemed to notice that the bizarre chess genius Bobby Fischer is dead, for instance…

NPR’s On the Media took a stab at the question on Sunday, from a press perspective. Noting that with the advent of social media, the rumor mills turn faster than the printing presses these days, the public demand for immediate information is fierce when its interest is piqued. The Associated Press recently started writing pre-emptive obituaries for notoriously self-destructive celebrities like Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse, just so they’d be prepared for the widespread information feeding frenzy if the news of sudden death ever broke.

But Heath Ledger? Heath Ledger wasn’t on their radar for an early death. Heath Ledger caught the press completely off-guard, and so the breaking news was handled by the masses.

And as one of the masses, I raise my glass. We’ll remember  you, Heath.

Your Biographies:

Your Films:

Some people rely entirely on prayer. I find that prayer yields better results when I augment it with social media. Here was my recent cry to the Universe (made through a friends-only social networking website):

“I need to buy a car right now and I don’t know where to start. I haven’t owned a car in three years! I want something reliable that will run forever and gets good gas mileage. I don’t want to spend a lot and I’ve never bought a car without help before. Um… crap!”

The suggestions started rolling in. Honda Civic. Toyota Corolla. Vehix.com. Cars.com. Carfax.com. Kelly Blue Book. Names of trusted mechanics. Tips on finding the right insurance agency. Info about smog checks and DVM registrations. Reminders that rush hour traffic is sometimes slower than Caltrain. Reminders that I don’t have to do anything without help, ever, if I don’t want to.

This sent me in the right direction for research, and I quickly narrowed down my focus to exactly what I wanted: a 2000-2004 manual transmission 4-door Toyota Corolla with power locks/windows and in a dark color, somewhere local. Excellent. That was easy.

But then I scoured the listings and couldn’t find one. Well, that’s not true — I did find one, but it was at a really sketchy-looking small used car dealership with a disturbingly bad website. The car went crashing off my radar when I saw the dealer’s horrible “About Us” photo. Um, no.

[This photo is a direct lift from the website. I did not reduce its quality for dramatic effect.]

I went back to my social networks to tell them my tale of woe, and they agreed that the man behind the desk was not to be trusted. Peanut gallery quotes included: “where’s his computer? this is well into the 21st century; every work desk should have a computer at it,” and “The picture looks like he’s finalizing plans to take over the world… from his computer-less desk. Haha! ‘You’re right, Skeletor, it will be as easy as taking candy from a baby! Mu-hahahaaaa!’ ”

Meanwhile, I was decompressing on Twitter, feeling discouraged about the process and getting a lil’ bit silly in my musings. The twitterpaters cheered me up with hedonistic influence and emotional support. I remembered that I was shopping with an army behind me. They had my back.

And then, something magical happened. A friend who had been watching my prayers sent me a link to My Dream Car, being auctioned on eBay Motors from a dealership just south of San Jose. The “Buy Now” price was exactly my budget and exactly the value on Kelly Blue Book. I tried to brush it off as “too far away,” but then another friend offered to drive me there.

Frantically, I asked the Universe for tips on buying from dealers, and it filled my head with suggestions. Then I researched the vehicle history report on Carfax (completely clean) and looked up everything I could find out about the dealership. 400 people on eBay told me they were wonderful to do business with. That’s social media shopping for ya.

I showed up and walked straight to the car. The receptionist quickly tossed me the keys and let me take it for a test drive. It was just as delicious as I hoped it would be. The saleswoman showed up and asked how I was doing. I said, “I like this car. Can I buy it from you?”

She smiled and said, “Yes.”