(Left to right) SoCo SNP Founding Members Mingliang Jiang, Roderick Chia, and John Li.

Chia presents his thoughts on the definition of social assets, and the team discusses his ideas.

JULY 8, SHANGHAI. Members of the SoCo SNP Project discussed the concept of “social assets” at a meeting this past Sunday.

The gathering, held at U+ headquarters, consisted of the entire founding team as well as a majority of the advisory and development teams, with members flying in from Singapore and the United States. The meeting featured a presentation by Founder Roderick Chia, who heads SoCo’s marketing and finance operations.

“Since social assets have never been properly assessed before, they are vague and do not yet have a set definition,” said Chia. “Before we move forward, it is crucial that we nail down this definition.”

Chia categorized internet users into three main types of social actors: individuals who have a social account reflecting an actual or fictitious persona, organizations that use accounts to carry the organization’s brand and persona, and bots, which are not a legal entity but can nonetheless manage an individual’s or organization’s accounts.

Thus, Chia said, social interactions involve participation from two or more entities, whether they be between legal entities (human to human, human to organization, organization to organization, etc.) or a legal entity and a digital entity (i.e. a human likes a user-generated entity, such as a posted photo).

As a result, there are four groupings of social assets that are possible. The following is a summary of the social assets Chia and the rest of the team agreed upon:

Social assets are:

1. User-generated digital entities

a. Texts, images, video and metadata

2. Attributes of individuals

a. Name, alias, gender, date of birth, religion, race, orientation

3. Attributes of organizations

a. Date of incorporation, vision, mission, brand promise, etc.

4. Social interactions/behaviors

a. Followers, connections, social preferences, etc.

After these concepts were determined, Chia raised questions about whether bots or artificial intelligence could own social assets. Artificial intelligence will surely become more and more prevalent, he said, and this is a question they must keep in mind as the project progresses.