Social Networking approaches for e-commerce Web sites

I came across this pretty cool ethnographic research study on cell phone usage that is also relevant to how we think about community on the Web.  It’s interesting both from a methodological and a findings point of view.  It’s a pretty short deck, so check it out:
http://sfaapodcasts.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/sfaa-2007-metcalf.pdf

This from the authors:

When we talk about the "user experience" the main emphasis is often on an individual's experience with a particular technology. Even with a purported social technology, for example a social networking site, we still tend to create for the individual's interaction with the site (how does someone find their friend, how do they access this site easily from a mobile device).

However, designing for sociability means thinking about how people experience each other through the technological medium, not just thinking about how they experience the technology. The emphasis is on the human-to-human relationship, not the human-to-technology relationship. This is a crucial difference in design focus. It means designing for an experience between people.

Of course designing for an experience between people doesn't mean ignoring the interaction with the device, but it calls for taking something else into account. That "something else" is often another person or people. How do we, as developers of communication technologies, make the communications more interesting, more exciting and more stimulating for the receiver? How do we help our users meet the needs of the other people in their social network? How do we create a shared experience that is equally compelling for all participating parties? When we begin to think like this, we truly start to think of designing social software, social applications, social media.

A lot of e-commerce web sites seem to be scrambling to figure out how to deal with the social networking phenomenon, and in my opinion there are a lot of knee-jerk reactions going on.  E-commerce sites shouldn't try to become social networking sites.  They should leverage their commerce platform to connect people to each other.

A great example is Facebook apps.  eBay has a brand new Facebook application that allows users to connect their eBay profiles to their Facebook accounts.  You can see others' watch lists and even add items to their list if you think they might be interested.  It's also another avenue for sellers to showcase the items they have for sale.  By using its commerce platform to integrate into an existing social networking site, eBay is building on its strength as an online retailer and plugging into an enormous network without re-inventing the wheel by trying to become a social networking site unto itself.