I thought I might start a cross-pollenation of topics here between this blog and The Munkysphere – where I’m attempting to gather people together to talk about a concept I’m intrigued by. I read some literature about a phenomenon called The Monkeysphere a while back. It was developed by studying the tribal and group habits of apes, and then applied to humans with some fairly accurate results.
The concept is simple. You can only maintain deep meaningful connections with a certain number of people at one time. That is your Monkeysphere. You might care if a rock falls on someone in Slovenia and kills them, but you won’t invest that emotion with the same type of urgency you would if someone in your sphere was hurt.
None of that is what I’m after here, though. All of us active on the web are part of a number of groups. For me there are writers, bloggers, web 2.0 geeks, IT geeks, horror fans, and then more diverse social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
I have levels of connections in all those areas…some very close, some in an outer ring, and some I am aware of by name, and enjoy crossing paths with, but don’t seek out regularly or think about as often. It’s that way for everyone.
The key, then, is to find a way to link spheres together. I propose that this be done by “valence connections,” shared connections between one tribe or group and another. If enough of these cross-connections are identified, it should be possible to spread information, interests, and services across a wider net.
In the same way that a Twitter user retweeting a post can send it ricocheting across the Twitter service and out into the blogs, it should be possible to create tribal links that would work in the same fashion – at least in theory – but that would cross services. I’d like to see it interact with a great number of social networks, but not be dependent on any of them…so if something closed down and went away, the Munkysphere would just adjust.
Thoughts and ideas on implementing this are needeed and welcome, both here and at the Munkysphere site…
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[...] David Niall Wilson: Glimpses Into a Overactive Mind wrote an interesting post today on Groups, Tribes, Spheres and MunkysHere’s a quick excerpt I thought I might start a cross-pollenation of topics here between this blog and The Munkysphere – where I’m attempting to gather people together to talk about a concept I’m intrigued by. I read some literature about a phenomenon called The Monkeysphere a while back. It was developed by studying the tribal and group habits of apes, and then applied to humans with some fairly accurate results. The concept is simple. You can only maintain deep meaningful connections with a certain number of [...]