The Social Graph is Neither The Social Graph Is Neither I first came across the phrase social graph in 2007, in an essay by Brad Fitzpatrick, though I'd be curious to know if it goes back further. The idea of representing relationships between people as networks is old, but this was the first time I had thought about treating the connections between all living people as one big object that you could manipulate with a computer. At the time he wrote, Fitzpatrick had two points to make. Fitzpatrick subsequently went to work for Google, and his Utopian vision of open standards and open data became subsumed in a rivalry between Google and Facebook. This rivalry has brought the phrase 'social graph' into wider use. I think this is a fascinating metaphor. But right now I would like to take issue with the underlying concept, which I think has two flaws: I. The idea of the social graph is that each person is a dot in a kind of grand connect-the-dots game, the various relationships between us forming the lines. II.
Welcome to Zug: the sleepy Swiss town that became a global economic hub | Business Nestling beside a lake overlooked by snow-dusted mountains, Zug seems for all the world like just another cute, affluent Swiss town. You could wander its cobbled Altstadt, sample its culinary speciality, a liqueur-drenched Kirschtorte, even stay on to see one of Zug's renowned sunsets, without ever imagining you were at a cardinal point of the global economy - or in a town that, for years, was the hideout of the world's most wanted white-collar criminal. According to the government of the canton, or region, of which Zug is the capital, there are 27,000 companies on its commercial register - one for every man, woman and child in the town, leaving a few hundred to spare. About 3% of the world's petrol is traded, either as crude oil or refined product, through Zug and the neighbouring town of Baar. Yet the signs of wealth in Zug are remarkably discreet: no casino; no stretch limos; no exclusive nightclubs. In addition, Zug offered Rich a much-needed bolthole after 1983.
Philip Trippenbach