Relaciones en Facebook: de la relación recíproca a la activa

El último rediseño de Facebook no es simplemente un lavado de cara o un giro a parecerse a Twitter. La compañía tiene estudiado plenamente el cambio y le lleva a hablar de un nuevo tipo de relaciones entre usuarios: es una relación activa.

Sheryl Sandberg, responsable de operaciones de la red social, explica así la evolución del concepto:

Think about the ways you communicate with your friends–whether on or off Facebook. The communication likely falls into one of two traditional types: reciprocal communication or direct communication. Reciprocal communication is a conversation where messages are exchanged back and forth. This can include talking on the telephone, or on Facebook it can mean a Wall-to-Wall exchange or real-time chat. Direct communication occurs when you send a message to someone specific, with or without the expectation of a reply. It can be a one-way Inbox message or Wall post on Facebook, or sending an old fashioned letter or an e-mail.

On Facebook, there’s a third and new way you communicate–through the stream. Every time you log into your home page you see a running timeline or stream of the information being shared by your friends and the other things you’re connected with on Facebook. The more people share, the more you see in the stream and the more you learn about your connections.

This stream communication, rather than reciprocal and direct communication, forms your active network. Whenever you interact with a story in the stream–whether you “Like” a piece of content, comment on it or simply click on it–the person sharing it becomes part of your active network. When our Data Team measured active networks for users on Facebook, it found that, in any given month, users keep up with between 2 times and 4 times more people than through more traditional communication.

The other impact of the active network is that it leads to greater connectedness between the people in someone’s network. Take, for example, my colleague Alex Smith, one of the data researchers at Facebook. He is connected with co-workers, college friends, high school buddies and family–all on Facebook. As he engages in reciprocal and direct communication, there is little to no connectedness among the people in his network. His active network, though, is much denser, showing connections stretching across the different groups of friends in his network because his interactions in the stream make it easier for people in his network to find one another.