During the last two weeks we watched The Godfather 1, 2 and 3 on DVD. It's always fun watching were my American friends picked up the few Italian words they know (and that we never use).

Since social software seems to be the current buzzword, it was interesting to see how in the first and especially in the second episode the young Vito Corleone is building his social network: by helping others.

The line "Some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me" is in some part of what a network is about.

We all do it, we help others hoping that some way we will be able to ask for help. People has always been doing it but new types of software are helping this process incredibly.

To me it happens every single day: I need something, help, an information, a connection, anything, and the first thing I do is check who is on-line in my IM client. An astonighing number of times I can get what I need simply asking somebody who can be in the next room or on another continent.

In the very same way I do receive requests every day and I do my best to help. Overall it works very well, and unlike in the Corleone family, nobody's keeping any accounting, even if most of the times I feel more confident asking something to somebody I have helped at some time than to a stranger.

Even if deep feelings like trust or friendship cannot be created by some code, there is a lot of software that today is helping us creating connections and keeping these connections alive, interfacing minds all over the world.

I don't think that there is much need for applications developed to create new connections, there's too much involved there, but there's definetly plenty of room to improve the tools that make existing connections more efficient and stronger.

PS: yes, I am Italian, but this is how far I live from Corleone and no, you won't find any horse head in your bed if you don't help me