How to Help People Connect?

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and an interesting blogger shared a couple of clever business ideas around helping people easily create social plans. I think there is a major problem when it comes to how infrequently most people organize cool social events for their friends. These ideas could possibly help:

I’d also like to see a better evite system that allows people to move from conditional plans into something concrete. For example, I might want to go to dinner and a movie with friends IF I like the movie, and IF the timing is right, and IF they pick a good restaurant. My guess is that many people don’t bother making plans with friends because it’s too hard to negotiate all the preferences. No one enjoys putting out invitations and getting no takers. It’s hard to be the organizer.

I’d like the future evite system to start by figuring out who is around and who is up for what sorts of activities. Over time, the system would figure out the sorts of things you like and make suggestions to your circle of friends. Or perhaps you would keep a running profile of the new movies you’d like to see, the concerts you’d enjoy, and the restaurants you want to experience. The evite system would combine everyone’s general preferences into one or more specific plans for which you can opt in or out. And all along the process that might develop over the course of a week, each participant can “nudge” the plan in the direction he or she wants. The system might even negotiate potluck menus and help pick a home for get-togethers.

Looking at the sociology of Facebook it is evident that most people only socialize with a very small group of people. There is nothing inherently wrong with this—it is much more comfortable to do so—but I think a lot of people would like to socialize more and with more people but they don’t know how. Meetup.com is great for going to events organized around a particular interest. But what is there to help encourage social events among friends and acquaintances? Facebook is great for connecting with your friends online (and looking at a bunch of your friends photos) but the real-world events side is limited. Yes, it allows people to easily create events and distribute it to their social graph which I am sure encourages some social activity that wouldn’t have happened otherwise but I don’t think it is enough. I don’t know exactly what the solution to this problem will be but I think there will be a lot of interesting developments in this area in the coming decade.