Social Dynamics: Why Facebook and Skype don’t belong together

Skype and Facebook shared their first steps at integration. I suggested many opportunities for feature and business synergy.

However…

You have two networks that really don’t belong together. Facebook is sexy chocolate and Skype is nutritional soup. You like both but do you really want chocolate soup?

Skype has been a network for what sociologists call strong interpersonal ties. These are people with high degrees of trust and intimate interaction. Usually numbering no more than a dozen people. The average Skype user has fewer than ten Skype contacts. Family, close friends, immediate work colleagues.

Facebook has been a network for weak ties. These are people you know more casually. You met at a party or a conference and want to stay in touch. Fellow alumni from school or a previous job. Someone interesting that you know that may not know you.

They are both intensely useful and valuable but we use and value them differently. Weak tie networks help us discover new things. Strong tie networks help us sustain close relationships and get things done.

When you bump the two against each other you may have problems.

Skype, a strong tie network, may lose its ability to help you identify and manage your close and important relationships, amid the clutter of hundreds or thousands of contacts. Facebook, a weak tie network, may suddenly expose strangers to greater levels of intimacy and interruption than they expect.

I’m already getting calls from friends startled and afraid that mere acquaintances have their phone numbers. They don’t remember putting that information into Facebook.

The Skype-Facebook cross-network opportunity lies in the strengths of the other without yielding the strengths that drew people in the first place. Discovering new strangers who might become strong ties is great for Skype. Graceful ways to retire a once fruitful relationship would bring users to Facebook.  Improving the quality of latent relationships so your weak ties don’t become absent ties is good for both.

Picture: Weak, strong and absent ties by Sadi Carnot via Wikimedia Commons.