Google's Asymmetric Social Network

Some observers early on said that Google+ was a Facebook competitor. It is. But it is structurally different. Facebook is a symmetric network. Google+ is asymmetric, though users can decide to make their relationships symmetrical. Twitter is asymmetric by design, but Google+ handles either mode more gracefully.

An asymmetric social network is a social network in which a first member’s relationship to a second member is not necessarily the same as the second member’s relationship to the first member.

Since the character of the social interaction between members in a member network can be defined in accordance with the nature of the relationship between those members, a first member in an asymmetric social network may interact with a second member in ways that differ from the social interaction provided for the second member to interact with the first member.

Google's Asymmetric Social Network and Plus Authoring Patent