At our startup, we've developed an algorithm that analyzes your Facebook friends and the connections between them to determine your fraternity and sorority. We find groups of friends in which everyone is friends with everyone. The algorithm runs in less than a second for ~1000 friends.<p>We've seen tremendous success, one sorority girl will sign up and the algorithm will accurately list ~150+ girls in her sorority given just her friend data.<p>Though we're now considering a pivot to offer a B2B service in which we'd identify "Connector" or "Maven" users. Connectors/Mavens are the special types of users that help spread the word for your product and the users you want to provide special attention to, e.g. customer service, special offers, etc.<p>We'd also help you identify the key people to invite to your site. So if John is friends with a Connector, we provide you the code to put on your site to invite this Connector.<p>---> The burning question:<p>Would businesses want this? Would they be willing to pay? Is this a clever application of a powerful algorithm?<p>Our algorithms run in real time essentially so we're convinced we're opening some new doors. I apologize for being intentionally vague :)
I've been pondering a probably similar concept since the fb graph became accessible. These are my thoughts on this matter:<p>Yes, it is potentially worth a lot to businesses. But not by itself. Think of all the cool things a company could do with this information - those are the things you should be providing to the company. Otherwise you're limiting yourselves to businesses that both have the vision to see the potential AND have the available resources to implement it into their workflow.<p>If you aim for the marketing potential in identifying connectors/mavens, you should add a layer of services that help businesses to communicate effectively with those individuals, and track how the message spreads through the network.<p>If you aim for the customer service aspect, you should add a layer that helps connect your information with their CRM systems.<p>Or you could find strategic partners in those fields, and enable them to integrate your services in their existing product portfolio.
> At our startup, we've developed an algorithm that analyzes your Facebook friends and the connections between them to determine your fraternity and sorority.<p>Great!<p>Then again, I don't belong to a fraternity or a sorority.