It wasn’t too long ago (7-8 years ago)  that the idea of a “portal” was the hot trend in Websites.  But then the idea of “logging in” was not what it is today.  Now we have the various connecting frameworks that allow one to login to other sites using one’s existing Facebook, Google, Yahoo,  or other logins. Now we have services such as Pandora showing us lists of our friends (from Facebook) who like the same music.  I’m waiting on the Amazon implementation of that,  so that books can be the social item that they already are in face to face life. 

Having this relationship between logins brings the basic features of the portal to life again.  The first portals promised to be a “one stop shop” where we can do all of our logging in, checking mail,  getting news (and that news which is tailored to our expressed interests).  The “Social Graph” groups our interests with people we have designated as “friends”.  Right now,  it looks like people I follow on Twitter are a closer reflection of what interests me than my “friends” on Facebook.  People we have chosen to “follow” form a good recommendation engine.  The things they link to,  and the news they talk about tend to interest me as well.   There’s no reason why “recommendation engines” can’t work in the church world.  I already do that with Twitter.  Twitter has become my replacement for RSS Feed readers,  which used to be my “morning newspaper”.  I’d fire up my News Reader and peruse the latest posts from people and organizations to which I had subscribed via RSS.  I have slowly moved all of those I used to find via RSS to accounts I follow on Twitter. 

I also have hooked up my blog to “tweet” notification that I have posted a new item.   I have had it setup (it’s not working right now) for Facebook to pull in my blog posts via RSS.  As standards emerge,  it will be possible to set up a spot on the Web or an app on our desktop or smartphone as a portal that brings us right up to date via our friends (and we dig a bit deeper with things like groups that Facebook unveiled just recently,  where we can zero in on certain friends as a subcategory of friends to whom we turn to keep us informed – and us,  them— about a particular issue). 

These developments are the kind of thing with which we in the church communications need to stay abreast.  They impact what value we can extract from the Social Graph. And for us,  as a people who attribute great value to the body of which we are a part,  this “Social Graph” is of deep theological significance.