I wrote about recommendations/reviews this morning, in the context of major changes that would be made to social network services from 2010 to 2015.<p>"Many may not realize it, but Facebook's Beacon 'service', in which purchases you made were displayed to your friends, was a poorly thought out, horribly misguided attempt... at something we all want (even if we don't admit it): our friends' opinions. But in addition to the privacy-infringing implications of Facebook's premature program, they failed to realize that a purchase does not equal praise. Sometimes we buy things because we have to, or for other people. Sometimes we buy things everyone else is buying and spend months thinking 'what a waste of money that was'."<p>[...]<p>"Benefits of Social Network Reviews<p>[...]Your friends get reliable data on recommendations for and against from a context that's meaningful to them. If enough of their network has reviewed a product/service, they might even have the option of segregating those reviews into more narrow contexts (coworkers at business A, friends from school G, contacts in area L).<p>You can establish yourself as an authority. Drink a lot of wine? The SNS should offer you the option of displaying your wine reviews prominently on your profile. An SNS tracking review trends across networks can recognize: "These two people have the most dissimilar views on wine that are still agreed with by the most people in region Q. Let's display their reviews as a kind of point/counter-point to everyone in that region". [...]"<p>If you're interested, the whole post is available at: <a href="http://socialstrategist.com/2008/01/27/social-networking-services-of-2010-part-i" rel="nofollow">http://socialstrategist.com/2008/01/27/social-networking-ser...</a>