Graphs with Chris Dixon March 2, 2011

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Google Tech Talk
February 16, 2011

Presented by Chris Dixon

ABSTRACT

It has become customary to use "graph" to refer to the underlying data structures at social networks like Facebook. (Computer scientists call the study of graphs "network theory," but on the web the word "network" is used to refer to the websites themselves). A graph consists of a set of nodes connected by edges. The original internet graph is the web itself, where webpages are nodes and links are edges. In social graphs, the nodes are people and the edges friendship. Edges are what mathematicians call relations.

Graphs can be implicitly or explicitly created by users. Facebook and Twitter's graphs were explicitly created by users. At Hunch we've created what we call the taste graph. We created this implicitly from questions answered by users and other data sources. Our thesis is that for many activities -- for example deciding what movie to see or blouse to buy -- it's more useful to have the neighbors on your graph be people with similar tastes versus people who are your friends. I'll talk about the rising importance of these types of graphs, and dig deeper into some examples.

Chris Dixon is the co-founder of Hunch and the Founder Collective and a personal investor in a number of early-stage technology companies. He lives and works in New York city.

This Tech Talk was presented at one of the Google NYC Tech Talk Series. For more information, or to attend future events at the Google NYC Engineering Office, see http://www.meetup.com/google-nyc-tech-talks/