Social discovery is the new kid on the block in the startup scene. Glancee, Highlight, Banjo, and Sonar are this year's SXSW hottest darlings. This session will provide a detailed analysis of this space by Andrea Vaccari, cofounder and CEO of Glancee. First, we will understand what is social discovery and why it is here to stay, ready to fullfil an already existing yet underserved market at the intersection of social networking and dating services. Then we will look at today's landscape: what are the most interesting players in the space, how they differentiate from one another, how they are tackling growth and privacy concerns, and how they play along with existing social norms. Finally, we will discuss about the future of social discovery: the long-term vision of bringing together the best of our physical and digital worlds, and the opportunity to create valuable services that can be easily monetized.
by Eric Friedman, Mark Coatney and Ro Gupta
The term “social graph” was coined originally to describe the network of connections we already knew we had such as friends on Facebook or professional contacts on LinkedIn.More recently, graphs that are inferred as a result of other primary activities – e.g. - commenting on a website (Disqus), expressing a taste preference (Foursquare), sharing a new website (Tumblr), etc. – have emerged in a big way, particularly in advancing discovery and recommendations. Even platforms for which explicit connections are core – e.g. Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and others – are realizing the value in the implicit relationships that form over time.Some of these actions are explicit, such as checking in, buying a product from amazon - both which influence the future experience on both services.We plan to delve into examples within Foursquare, Disqus, Tumblr, and others to provide an understanding of both implicit and explicit social graphs and actions.