Interest graph

The Interest graph vs. the Social Graph.

The Interest Graph refers to the specific and varied interests that form one’s personal identity, and the attempt to connect people based on those interests. On an individual scale, this means the different things one person is interested in—be it jogging, celebrity gossip, or animal rights—that make up their likes and dislikes, and what has more meaning to them over someone else. On a broader scale, it’s the way those interests form unspoken relationships with others who share them, and expand to create a network of like-minded people.

Interest Graph vs. social graph

Contrary to the social graph, which subsists of the network of people that a user knows personally, the Interest Graph consists of the network of people who share interest with the user, but who the user doesn’t necessarily know personally. While the Social Graph, which was popularized by Facebook, has been touted by Mark Zuckerberg as making it so that “groups and applications can achieve enormous growth”, others are starting to question its limitations in connecting people in a meaningful way.

While the Social Graph consists of who a user knows, the Interest Graph consists of what they like, what moves them, and the facets of their personality that, in part, make up who they are. These connections can be much stronger, and much more telling, than simply who they are friends or acquaintances with. Two people being linked together because they knew each other in elementary school or work at the same job doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about them beyond their connection to each other. And for the people involved, it doesn’t always foster a very strong or lasting connection—Joe might be Facebook friends with Jill, but that doesn’t mean the like any of the same music, television, sports, and so on. Beyond who knows who and how, the Social Graph offers very little insight into each person’s personal tastes, preferences and behaviours.

On the other hand, the Interest Graph offers powerful insight into who someone is as a person, and allows people to instantly connect with other who share exactly the same interests as them, regardless of knowing them or not. The ability to graph peoples’ interests allows them to tap into potential relationships that they might never have been exposed to. Before, a person could be in a room with five other people who love the same football team as they do, but never find out. By mapping and connecting people's interests, however, people can immediately identify those connections, in and of themselves. As more companies begin to take advantage of the Interest Graph, people are more capable of connecting immediately with like-minded people who share their interests.

Use

The term was first widely used in reference to Twitter, Over time, more and more companies have begun to leverage the Interest Graph to appeal to users, connect them with each other, and gain insight into what makes them tick.

Businesses can utilize the concept of interest graph in a number of ways:

• Consumers can receive special offers and discounts based on their interests, which became a base for crowdsourced services like Groupon.
• Instead of aiming at a large group of viewers, advertisements can be much more targeted.
• E-mail campaigns that reach members of a particular interest node can be created.
• Interest graphs can affect product development since potential new features of a product lay in neighboring nodes of a particular interest graph.

In advertisement

For advertisers alone, the Interest Graph offers a potential to target consumers that hasn’t been seen before. In a February 2011 article on TechCrunch, Rip Empson said, "I think we can be sure that whoever can collect a record of your current interests and package them for advertisers stands to make a lot of money...[Max] Levchin says that Twitter may end up being a more advantageous platform to advertisers because it allows you to follow a brand and get realtime information and updates — through brand discovery and celebrity discovery — which is more likely to be informative than what you get from your friends, who may not be experts." In another sense, e-commerce sites such as Netflix and Amazon have successfully tapped into the interest graph with highly customized recommendations, which have been paramount to their success.

Product development

The potential for not just advertising, but offering users a targeted, personalized experience based on what truly interests them—and taking that a step further to create a social experience by connecting those people to each other—has inspired several companies to leverage the Interest Graph for their businesses and platforms.

• Social music site turntable.fm connects people with the same taste in music through shared playlists.
• Q & A site Quora notes the Interest Graph as one of its “two key pillars”, saying that “By understanding my interests and allowing me to shape my experience through that additional filter, Quora’s architecture creates an environment where I can accumulate relevant knowledge very quickly”.