It is hard to deny that social media has become a large part of many of our lives. Some more so than others. For the “heavy” social media users out there, sorting through a massive amount of followers or friends can be difficult.
RankWave is a “personal social network portal” which analyzes large amounts of data from various social networks in real time. The service, which is still in its closed beta stages, uses an optimization algorithm to divide up information on statistics and rankings of fellow social network users. Users can use this information to find out who on their friend lists are valuable, who is the most active and how they rate in the social network world. CEO of RankWave, Sungwha Shim, described the company’s main target.
“RankWave is primarily for users who need to manage their accounts, so our target is heavy social network users.”
Rankwave’s analysis pattern is patented and does not simply measure users’ comments and likes but the interaction between users in comparison with their usual behavior. If a user likes or comments on one friend’s posts all the time it does not necessarily mean that their score will higher, as it part of their normal behavior pattern. On the other hand, interacting with someone that you don’t normally interact with will result in higher points.
The platform also analyzes the most popular posts over one’s social network and users can select specific interest categories.
“One of our employees didn’t know that one of their former colleagues had had a baby, but was able to find out through our service. I think that like this, RankWave can act as line of communication.
“Adding social networks with open APIs is not too difficult from a developers standpoint but taking the special characteristics from each social network and finding how to utilize them in our service is what takes time.”
RankWave plans to promote its service through viral marketing and aims to reach over 1% of the social networking market. The company itself is made up of highly experienced staff and Shim says he is confident that they can competently handle the large amount of data which comes with social network analysis.
“Basic real-time services can analyze units of one million people. RankWave’s staff previously created and managed the Korean messenger service Nateon. The service has 35 million users with many things changing at the same time. Though it is still hard to give an answer about how we will compete with other companies, in terms of technical skill I am confident.”
Other features that plan to be added to the service in the future include an individual timeline analyzer based on users’ hobbies and preferred topics, and “perks” which provide users with some sort of benefit based on the their score and interests, e.g. a production company gives away musical tickets to someone interested in performing arts. RankWave is also developing a global version of the platform which is expected to be released at the end of this year.
You can visit Rankwave’s blog here or check out their Facebook page here.