MattCreamer.com

In the wake of last week’s big Facebook news–Microsoft’s $240 million stake–I worked on this analysis of founder Mark Zuckerberg’s heavily-hyped notion of the social graph, which I think is what’s propping up the current insane (and very abstract) valuations. Sure, the social graph is high-minded and forward-looking and clearly sets Facebook apart from other social networks. Yet it rings a bit false to me.

Here’s why: The notion of mapping everyone’s social and business contacts requires a comprehensiveness tough for any one network to achieve and maintain, especially given the fickleness of web users. My circle of Facebook friends, for instance, is fairly incomplete. It skews much more to work contacts, people I hardly know, and tech- and media-savvy friends who care about the whole Web 2.0 thing. Family and my more friends with more luddite sensibilities just aren’t there–and those constitute some important nodes for me. Just because you can use digital tools to create and map networks doesn’t mean that those versions of networks truly correspond to what’s going on in your real life. For me, certainly, it’s an approximation at best and I’m not sure how much better it will get.

This common-sense argument doesn’t take away from what Facebook has done. And who knows what Zuckerberg & co. will do. But at this point, I’d argue the social graph is more futurecasting or even mythmaking than anything actionable for advertisers who really want to play with the possibilities of networks.

Some links:

• Zuckerberg talking to John Battelle at the Web 2.0 conference.
• Brad Fitzpatrick on the social graph.
• The Economist on Facebook.