Asymmetric Intimacy

So on Friday we had the concept of Asymmetric Following, and yesterday JP Rangaswami on Confused of Calcutta weighed in with Continuous Partial Asymmetry, an excellent term to describe an Asymmetric network with a backchannel (in this case Twitter):

Someone who has 4000 followers can choose to reply to the @s of 400 of the followers, because of two critical things. One, the cost of replying to the @ is low. And two, you can vary the particular 400 you’re replying to. Yes you’re constrained, ostensibly by personal bandwidth, from replying to everyone all the time. But because you manage to reply to some of the people some of the time, nobody feels left out, the weak ties remain in place and everything works.

I agree with this - and also the interesting feature that these networks also have a "direct mail" private backchannel in addition. Interestingly though, JP thinks it may lead to a reduction in the power law nature of the Social 'Net, where influence usually rapidly goes to the "Hit Head" because of those same low trans@ction costs.

As a result of this continuous partial asymmetry, there is one more valuable, yet unintended, consequence. A-listing is less of an issue. The conversations that take place extend well beyond narrow echo chambers, there’s always an infusion of fresh voices into the conversation, yet barriers to entry remain low.

I'm not sure this will be the case, as for some odd reason there is a deep desire within the human breast to cling slavishly and obsequiously to the high status individuals - whether that status be useful (intelligence, wealth, power) or not quite as much (slebs), and Asymmetric networks actually exacerbate this by making it easier to have more massively skewed follower/followed ratios*.

But given that Web 2.0 has now (re)discovered asymmetric networks, I felt this this feature too is so profound that it too needs its own name, so I have plagiar...ahem, adapted Leisa Reichelt's excellent "Ambient Intimacy" concept to create:

Asymmetric Intimacy

Yes, this is that massively skewed intimacy where one can Asymmetrically Follow (along with the rest of the herd) the minutiae of someone else's life on a social network, and know that one is in the (Continuous yet Partial) presence of Someone (or thing) Great.

Whatever the reason, we do it, even on something as unimportant as a social media network Personality . Thousands, millions, (billions even one day?) follow Robert Scoble and various other luminaries, and by doing so get to understand the minutiae of their daily lives and digestive tracts. And by using the right client, every one of their pearls can be followed by soft whispers on phone, PC and (if desperate) email.

They, of course, remain largely in blissful ignorance of yours.

But O the joy when the supplicant's @ prayer is answered by the luminary - celebrations and much re-tweeting shall abound!. But hark ye - the Divine Law of Long Tails says that although you may be gazing at the stars' grazing habits, you are definitely still in the gutter

It was even more intriguing to see James Governor's (he who initially discovered Asymmetric Following) next post about asymmetry on Dopplr. Dopplr is a network that allows other people to know where you are. In my naivete I assumed it would be a symmetrical relationship - why would you want a whole lot of people, whom you didn't know, to know where you were? But it would appear there is an asymmetric network there too (albeit slight) - will this asymmetry increase as followers expect ever more open-ness from their (social) objects of Interest ?

Why? Well, I recalled that the impact of social networks is as much to promote the worshipped as connect the worshippers, but you have to be there for them! As Terry Pratchett noted in Small Gods, a God is only as big as the number of worshippers that (Asymmetrically) Follow them. Thus this Asymmetry may be a tiger that one has grasped by its (long) tail - will we be seeing posts on the Tyranny of Asymmetry ere this plays out?

One of the most interesting things I saw recently is the formation of Twitter Groups, this will - in my view - be the start of the breakup of the "Uniform A List Worship" as Groups allow lots of different clusters to form around niche interests within the medium. You may recall that this was a key stage in the development of the email based 'Net as well, and allowed it to scale (and to those who cannot recall the past, beware of Santayana's Law)


* Asymmetric Networks are broadcast network structures, which is (was?) 2.0 Anathema from the days when The Conversation was king - but is a very attractive architecture to Those who would be Kings of Social Media. Thus, rebranding is clearly critical