The social graph is crap?

El Reg has an interesting read: Social networks may be imaginary.

I love the quote attributed to Eric Bonabeau “A lot of this talk about the social graph is crap.”

I am not sure I totally agree with Eric here, but I get his point. 

As my good friend, the late Dr. Cyril Brookes said, “Web 2.0 is about making sense of situations, finding people with similar interests, sharing experiences, and (my hobby horse) creating knowledge from tacit resources inside people’s heads.“

It really is not about the network itself, but about the value that is exchanged through the network – the knowledge created and shared.