The idea behind it is that our Social Networks online are not representative of our actual social network. As it turns out, this is in fact the truth: the average person only communicates with 5 – 7 people in their intimate circle, using technology. Facebook is also quite interesting: the average user has about 120 friends but two way communication only takes place between 4 -6 people, depending on your gender.

It does make me realize that Social Networks don’t adequately deal with the fact that our actual relationships are vastly different from those depicted on our online profile.

(Sources are at 1:30)

This purging phenomenon however, is quite interesting and highlights some inherent problems in human relationships on social networks. Cleaning up your friends list requires you to very explicitly re-evaluate every relationship on a particular network. In our real lives we are hardly ever confronted with this. People drift in and out of our social circles and it is a very naturally occurring process. Only in very dramatic settings have I publicly declared to have broken off contact with a friend.

Part of the problem is the auto-friending that occurs on some networks (whether via a machine or personally). It leaves the floodgates open for hundreds of meaningless contacts to seep in. Subsequently, as Scoble says, the whole social network experience becomes unmanageable because the system is not capable of assessing which of these contacts are meaningful or not. What’s more, these contacts or links, never gets removed, they are always there, unless specifically removed. It is as if you are compiling an ever increasing list of people you have ever socially interacted with.

The Dunbar’s number is also very often grossly exceeded on many social networks. My personal Facebook account (231 “friends”) is one such example. But, in it’s defense, social networks aren’t exactly like our real social networks, probably exactly because of the reason’s stated above.

This is not an entirely new idea, it has been done in various forms before, Wakoopa’s reputation levels are another excellent example. Introduced in 2008, the reputation levels reflect how much software you use or how active you are on the site.

The Expert on Wakoopa

Google's Gmail Ninjas

Like the much discussed twitter follower count, such rating systems inevitably result in those partaking in it to want to have their rating/number increased. Fellow blogger Joshua Porter also has some insights on this subject. His focus on explaining it is mostly due focussed around our behavior of wanting to collect, and I agree with him.

BJ Fogg’s book Persuasive Technology also offers an explanation:
Competition is perhaps the most powerful group-level intrinsic motivator. When you set up a competition, people become energized. They invest time and effort. They care about the outcome.

Obviously, what else is this habit of collecting (especially in the context of Gmail’s Ninjas) than a competition? Apart from it being very persuasive, I think it is a great way to introduce some boring features. It is bound to have an effect.

Now excuse me while I try to go and setup gmail on my own domain