Why do we recommend things?

Everything from Digg and del.icio.us to NowPublic or Newsvine — not to mention every startup that has ever tried to get some “viral” marketing going in its early days — relies in large part on users to vote on whether they like something, and to pass the word around to their friends. Even by writing this blog post, I’m effectively recommending the people I link to. Why do people do those kinds of things, in most cases for no compensation whatsoever?

Pete Blackshaw of Neilsen BuzzMetrics takes a good look at that question in a recent post, after wondering why he got “the upteenth invitation from a friend, close colleague, or ‘trusted expert’ last week to try this new service called Twitter.” Blackshaw says that his theory is we recommend products and services to friends “for a host of reasons beyond just the obvious — e.g. we like and value the product. In fact sometimes we recommend products and services we barely understand.” He goes on to list what he sees as the main reasons for this behaviour, including:

• First To Know & First to Tell: There’s a certain “social currency” one derives in being first to tell others.
• Favor Banking: Social networking often amounts to a big game of tradiing currency.
• Projection: Sometimes we recommend things we wish or aspire to use or consume.

It’s an interesting post, and I think Pete is onto something. You should go read the whole thing — I highly recommend it 🙂