Cornell to Use $800k From Google to Find Facebook’s Purpose

Mark Zuckerburg may be hunting for a way to monetize Facebook, but Google is searching for a way to make it useful. Internet and technology giant Google Inc. has given ten Cornell University faculty members $800,000 to develop meaningful ways to use social networks. A Cornell University press release this morning said that the Mountain View, CA-based company hopes Cornell researchers will find applications for social networks that will better mimic real-life human interaction and improve personal relationships.

Computer scientists, communication professors, economists, information scientists, and sociologists comprise the team of researchers that will lead the project. The group, which has been in existence for five years, recently created the Center for the Interface of Networks, Computation and Economics (CINCE) in order to examine the intersection of technology and society online.

“This research will help us leverage the wealth of data now available to bring our understanding of social networks to a new level, as well as enable collaborations with Google researchers that can lead to richer on-line social applications,” Jon Kleinberg, computer science professor and lead author on the paper detailing the project’s objectives, said in the release.

As the usage of online social networks has become an icon of the current generation lately, the quality of online applications and human-to-human connections has failed to accurately replicate real-life social interaction, according to the researchers. The group aims to propose ways to create positive online discourse and create incentives for networks to rely on accurate information and resources.