Too old for social networking?
A year older and a year wiser hopefully. Or another year where I just don’t get ‘social networking’ sites?
I’ve seen Friendster and Orkut come and go. All these silly invites I keep receiving for LinkedIn, FaceBook, whatever-reunited and WAYN. It reminds me of some pyramid scheme.
Then at startup events which I sometimes attend, ‘social networking’ is like the hottest buzz word since the Mobile Web™. In fact “mobile web social networking” (with AJAX) is probably the next Web 3.0. puke I’ve also heard people defend it, by calling it “community management”. Ah, does that make it better? No.
Here are my issues with social networking:
- Social networking isn’t exactly new. I’ve been around since the very early days like BBSes, like co-founding #durban on ZAnet and this is all a little ‘beneath me’. ;)
- I don’t want to meet people on the net. I’m sorry.
- I really don’t think it will get me laid.
- I am not sure it is a good idea if I want my social/sexual network mapped out. I don’t want people to know who I ‘know’ exactly. It could get me into trouble.
- Then if my “reputation” is tarnished, how do I repair it?
- Start again? New identity? Who is who? Who are you? Make new friends? Yeah, right.
- I think business contacts/partners are a precious thing and with LinkedIn, I think you’re supposed to share them. A relationship is a lot more deeper and meaningful than a Web link could ever be. I wouldn’t let someone look at my business card collection, even my precious business contacts.
- Worst thing is often you don’t seem to own this data. It’s all in the hands of the crazy bunch of guys known as the “FaceBook admins”.
- Who are absolutely desperate to sell all this personal information they’ve gathered about you and buy themselves some real friends ;)
Ok, I’ll finish by trying to be constructive. If these things were using standards (XFN, microformats?) and had more user control, then I would be happier. These proprietary islands of “social connectivity” feel wrong.
June 5th, 2007 at 4:07 am
Ok,
a) Orkut has been and GONE? You’ve been to India and Brazil, HELLO???
b) you are paranoid
c) generally I am not a fan either, but facebook is quite fun, and to me it does seem kinda new, the individual parts aren’t new, obviously, message boards, photo sharing etc, but put it all together in one very neat package and you do have something that at least seems new, I’ve joined all the others, to try and perhaps to have a presence, but facebook is the first one I’d say that I am into, and for me it’s not about meeting people, all my “friends” on there I know in real life,
d) you are paranoid
e) don’t slate it until you’ve tried it
f) yes, you guessed it, you are paranoid, but I suppose that doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to steal your data
June 5th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Orkut may be still big in Brazil or India, but I don’t care about it. This is about ME Jamie. ;)
These services as you point out are actually about keeping contact with your existing friends. I was wrongly assuming you actually supposed to meet new people. :)
So ‘networking’ is more of a state than a verb.
When it comes to keeping tabs on my friends I use IRC/Gmail(Jabber) chat, email, skype / voice calls, (a mailing list) and I guess Flickr’s http://flickr.com/photos/friends/ page. Sometimes even this blog.
June 5th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I’ve had some more thoughts. Some people argue that such-and-such service has an open API for integration. And yes, thanks to REST/RSS/HTTP and what-not it is actually quite easy to integrate some ‘social networking’ features between sites.
Though guys, that is not a standard. And still it doesn’t make your data any better to control.
I failed to mention Jaiku/Twitter and other sites like Plazes. I think these fall under the same category of ‘social networking’ sites. Yes, I am concerned about my privacy. Letting someone know where you are is cool, but equally very fecking dangerous.
I remember an old colleague Mika Raento (Jaiku hacker) telling me about this stuff all the time. Now he has his dissertation recently out about that same topic: http://mikie.iki.fi/dissertation/intro.pdf
How appropriate.
I guess this general theme could be expanded to the privacy implications of running Google Apps on your domain. I think I am seeing a mountain of a problem here now.
I think we need to be enabled with Digital Rights! However when one searches for ‘Digital Rights’ one gets DRM. DOH. How confusing…
June 5th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I think you have to separate your web standards ideals from the user experience. Users don’t give a shit. Just because it’s somehow standards complient does not make it a good site. And why are you propergating this myth that the web is dangerous? If someone wants to know your address they can just look it up on the voter register or the phone book. The internet is not REAL, nobody can travel down the phone line and kill you.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Would you say the user experience of email is better or worse than say IM-ing?
Email uses standards, whilst IM is that very poor user experience of proprietary islands. I’d rather use standards and communicate via email, instead of MSN Live or whatever it calls itself now.
Oh no, we are going to get into this, “what’s there to fear debate?”
What is there to fear if you’re watched everywhere by CCTV? Where anyone everywhere knows where you are? It could have Orwellian consequences.
June 6th, 2007 at 5:53 am
I think a lot of people would say they prefer IM, if you prefer email then why do we automatically chat on gmail if we’re both online? And why do we skype for that matter, if it’s such an awful non-standard experience? But it’s a dumb question, apples and oranges mate. The user does not care about standards, you should know this by now, does Jutta care about standards? Do I? Do users prefer Linux or Windows?
June 6th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
So User A on MSN wants to speak to User B on ICQ. GREEEAATT “user experience”.
Users prefer the Web. It’s not ‘Linux’, it’s the Web. The Web wins over Windows without it being forced down people’s throats or having to pay any M$ tax. Open standards are fantastic.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Oh, and another thing. You can buy “gifts” for people on facebook. At first I was like, what the hell, these things aren’t real, what a rip off! But now I think it’s actually quite a good business model, it’s a way that people can donate and pay for the site, but kinda get something for their money too, and they’re only U$1 a pop.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:24 pm
If you want open standards for (distributed) social networks, you should have a look at FOAF.
June 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Btw, I am “researching” Facebook of late. I blame Hawken!