dissonance between social reality, and social networking paradigms @Channel One+ As I delve deeper into the implementation details of some of the lesser-explored @Use Cases+ of the red#, something is starting to become obvious. I'm talking about: "Connections". The existing paradigm, from which red# diverges, but I'm about to argue, not quite enough, is that a person has "followers", or "friends", or "favorites". Red# understands that this is not how the world works, but it misses one key thing: permenance/temporality.

Example: WidgetCo posts a job listing on the matrix. Alice would like to apply for that job, and since she's not a weirdo, dozens of others. Realisticly, she only expects that a small portion of the jobs she applies to will want to interview her (set appointments), and of those that interview her, only one is going to ultimately have a more than fleeting connection with her. Should all of those be considered "connections"? treated the same as friends, feeds, and blogs she's following, and everything else? Choosing from the same set of permissions, all sharing the same idea of permenance? But if she wants to submit a resume by private message, she has to connect. If she wants to share calendaring, she has to connect. More importantly, when she no longer wants to have anything to do with them (she's done her job search), she has to go about disconnecting all of them. Also, simply being connected implies that they are allowed a certain de minimus access to her and her postings, which she may not even want.

Example 2: Super Fun Zone Corporation is running a promotion on the matrix. Bob would like to participate in the promotion. Agreeing to participation in a promotion in no way implies anything more than a fleeting connection in the real world, but in the social networking world, it's highly invasive (by design, social network companies are advertising companies, remember?). Bob should be able to make it a one-way relationship with that company. It should also easily terminate after a time, without having to think about it. This should not preclude connection-required activities however. Again, sending and receiving private messages for starters, but as more Zot applications unfold, it will get much much much more complicated than that.

I'm not exactly sure what the solution is. I don't even know if it really goes much deeper than having a robust user interface that hides all of the complexities. I feel as though that's a cop-out though. A band-aid. The fact of the matter is, the only reason we presume a "connection" is anything more than a one-off key-exchange is because the existing social networks are all based around staying connected to people you knew a billion years ago, and allowing companies to harvest all of your friends. But we're red#. We don't have to do as they do.

#foodforthought