Social Networks At A Crossroads

mateuscb writes "A few years ago, social networking Web sites were just some newfangled technology that college students loved. But over time, they have metamorphosed into an unavoidable Internet phenomenon that is changing the way people of all ages keep in touch with friends, find long-lost acquaintances, explore new hobbies and even look for employment."

unavoidable?

still haven't joined one. facebook, myspace, hi5... who cares. I know who my friends are.

Re:unavoidable?

My roommate is like that, he never created an accout on any SN site. He gets really pissed because he never gets invited to parties anymore as all the invites are distributed on MySpace (within our circle of friends). Likewise, he didn't buy a cell phone until 2006, and only then because at that point the cell phone was cheper then a land line. Before that, it annoyed everyone else that he was so hard to reach that even his close friends eventually stopped trying. I've never seen the nobility in not participating in cultural trends. All he ever did was isolate himself and alienate his friends.

Re:unavoidable?

This whole social networking (and cell phone proliferation) started as I went through college.

My senior year of high school, cell phones were divided into two classes - "Mobile Phones" which were a brick with a handset attached that you kept in your car, and "Cellular Phones" which looked much like the phones you buy today but four times the size. Nobody who didn't have a full time job as a salesman had one.

Four years later, the mobile brick phones were gone, cell phones were cheap enough that almost everyone I knew had one, and Instant Messaging had become mainstream.

I noticed in that time that when they were constantly available, people became extremely loathe to make any concrete plans at all. Whereas four years before, I could say, "Hey, tonight lets meet at 7 at the club" and expect a yes or no response, after everyone had a cell phone the response was, "Well, uhh, just call me on my cell." Getting a group of people together was no longer a matter of setting a date time, and being able to reasonably expect them to show up, it now required 15,000 phone calls.

I don't know how it happened, but cell phones and IM turned everyone into 14-year-old girls.

Now if I'm expected to check your web site every day to see if you're having a party instead of the courtesy of a phone call or email, thanks, but no thanks.

As such, I don't blame your friend in the least for not wanting to participate in the drama of keeping in touch with people like that.

Re:unavoidable?

Then how do you get your self-esteem, if you aren't using social networks? I do not understand.

"and even look for employment"

..with the amount of employers looking through social network sites for information on employees...surely that should be "and even look for unemployment"?

Linked In?

I'm surprised linkedin [linkedin.com] wasn't mentioned. It's getting a lot of use by the professional social networking crowd.

Re:Linked In?

>professional social networking crowd
What the hell does that mean? Professional social networking?
Prostitutes? Drug dealers?

Summary of the article...

Lots of people use Social Networking websites. Thanks for letting us know.

Unavoidable?

They're completely easily avoidable. Whenever I get sent a link to one, I reply with a link to http://isolatr.com/ [isolatr.com]. People soon get the idea.

it makes sense

It does make sense that online community sites/networks rock. I was never interested into these until this year. I tried Facebook. I'm not advertising facebook, BTW. It's just interactive. Since I don't have time (like most of you) to talk to friends in real life, and to offer them gifts or to poke them (yeah, try poking people in real life and you end up with police chasing you lol), I do it virtually. Most people find it easier to meet others online than in real life. How many hours do you spend procrastinating around on internet messengers or IRC channels, just for the sake of 'talking' to friends? Well, Online Community Networks is way cooler, interactive, and more importantly, you can find people you've lost. Had a girlfriend/boyfriend in high school whom you lost? Find him/her online. I guess online community networks are part of our lives (a bit like /.) - we wake up, check our emails, go there to check messages, poke people, send gifts, update our profile page and status, feed our virtual pets, send messages, etc all in a matter of minutes, and it does not tax on our real life schedules. Viva Facebook and others. I'm just sad that Yahoo can't turn 360 into something really cool. With Yahoo messenger backing it up, maybe it can. The privacy issue sucks though - example: Facebook profiles are being indexed by search engines (unless you edit your privacy settings). hmm..just a thought here, if Ajax write or the entire google docs, spreadsheet, etc is integrated into Facebook (because it's 'open'), can it be viewed as a true web OS? (don't want to go off-topic, but it's related - since when being viewed as a web OS, more people get interested into it)

Re:it makes sense

what about just sending an email? why send the message using the stupid facebook message system. unless you want to leave a comment for others to see. just write a goddamn email.

Re:it makes sense

Had a girlfriend/boyfriend in high school whom you lost? Find him/her online.

Precisely why I don't use social networking sites. I prefer to be out of sight/out of mind for my stalker ex. She already suckered me in and wasted an extra year of my life once. I'd rather not let her have any way to get interested in my life again. Even if all she can see is my last login date, I prefer to let her wonder whether or not I'm still alive.

Grrrr... paid journalism...

I don't mean to sound like a Troll.. but gotta love those press junkies! That article smacks of a public relations exercise by YUNiTi. I've been approached many many times by people 'offering' to manage our public exposure.. by releasing various stories, even negative ones, to increase the sites exposure. We've even had stories sent to us 'about our site' and placed into comparison with myspace and facebook, that pitched in exactly the same way as this story - and for us to have it released to the major publications / sites would ONLY cost $X per release. Give us back proper journalism!

Fine Grained Privacy Is Not New

I remember when imeem launched its peer to peer social networking gizmo they made a great deal about the fine grained privacy settings that could be applied to everything that you were connected to, but over time they've reduced the ability of users to protect things, shifted everything from the software client to a website only, and morphed into something like 'Youtube for music'

The new imeem is way cooler.

"Unavoidable phenomenon"

Why is the users of these sites believe they have stumbled across some "unavoidable phenomenon"? It sounds to me like a self-justifying phenomenon (or, more precisely, a phenomenon of self-justification).

And here's the part I *don't* get -- all the comments from people saying "I don't have time to keep up with friends and family, but since I joined {Facebook/Myspace/etc} we can keep in touch and make new friends..." WTF? Maybe if you peeled your fat ass away from the computer and spent time with family and friends and maybe got involved with some activities you could make new friends.

Maybe its just Wall Street greed coupled with the myopia of 20 somethings.

In other news, green is the new black!

A few years ago, social networking Web sites were just some newfangled technology that college students loved

...Whereas now, the first round of those original college kids have graduated and some haven't yet moved on; additionally, their younger siblings have started using these services to get a head start on the Cool New Thing(tm). Woo-woo.



But over time, they have metamorphosed into an unavoidable Internet phenomenon

I'd call this a sad commentary on the steadily advancing age-of-first-real-job, not an "internet phenomenon". YMMV. In any case, I've managed to avoid them quite well, thankyouverymuch.



changing the way people of all ages keep in touch with friends

No, not really. The afforementioned "college kids who haven't moved on yet" use it to keep in touch. The rest of us still use the phone or email or, wonder-of-wonders, physically meeting one another.



and even look for employment.

"Look". Not "find".

These folks have a rather rude awakening to look forward to... The rest of the world really doesn't give two shakes of a rat's ass about their pathetic little ego-pages. It doesn't care about their blogs, their favorite bands, their pictures of their cat/dog/iguana/fish-named-bob.

Your future employer doesn't care about Bob-the-fish. He cares that you have the ability to work, in person, with others, and get the job done. The fact that you can't differentiate between "friends" and "people you've never met but add to a counter on your website" doesn't really help with that.

Re:In other news, green is the new black!

No, not really. The afforementioned "college kids who haven't moved on yet" use it to keep in touch. The rest of us still use the phone or email or, wonder-of-wonders, physically meeting one another.

I'd disagree...the fact that I have moved on (2000 miles from where 90% of my friends live) is precisely the reason I use it to keep in touch. It's not a substitute for phone calls, emails, and personal visits, but I can't afford a $300 trip to meet up for coffee with a friend, and time zone differences often makes phone convos difficult with more than immediate family. I think each form of medium has a place along a spectrum of options - personal visits -> video calls -> phone calls -> emails -> social networking blogs -> twitter -> shouting from a mountaintop.

These folks have a rather rude awakening to look forward to... The rest of the world really doesn't give two shakes of a rat's ass about their pathetic little ego-pages. It doesn't care about their blogs, their favorite bands, their pictures of their cat/dog/iguana/fish-named-bob.

But that's the great/worst thing about the Internet - you can put up anything, and whether anyone really cares is a moot point. But undeniably, there is someone is crazy enough to care.

Friends

I* am on [Facebook/Myspace/etc.]** and have 128 social network friends... and they ALL know me and are interested in me... honest!

It's all a fad type website idea, it'll pass.

  * I personally don't use those kind of sites.
** Delete as appropriate.

Social networking seems kind of over

Social networking sites seem to me to be kind of over. A few years ago I was active on a few of them; Tribe and Nerve were fun. But the fun sites are over. Myspace is just the new AOL.

Phone-based social networking is probably where things are going. Although, interestingly, the iPhone doesn't have social networking. Helio does, but nobody uses Helio.

Could someone help me out

Tell me a bit about these "social networking" websites.

I missed out on them when I was in college because I was busy going out to bars, playing sports, seeing plays, and generally being social. Then I graduated and got busy going on dates, volunteering, and traveling with friends.

So, what was I missing?

Unavoidable?

[...]they have metamorphosed into an unavoidable Internet phenomenon[...]

Still avoiding them here! Maybe it's the complete lack of friends, or the low-speed connection that makes loading most of the sites impossible, but I've found it quite easy to avoid them.

Growth Rate Peaked Last Year

The rate of growth for most of the social networking sites peaked in late 2006, almost a year ago. The referenced article is a reverberation of the inflection point.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=social_networking_meme_verified [realmeme.com]

I predicted MySpace's peak in growth early in 2006, almost coincident to when it occurred. The introduction of Facebook's third party API is a sign of an industry entering a consolidated and standardization phase.

Social networking vs. real life

Here's something to think about; feel free to tell me if you think I'm wrong.

This is probably the first or second graduating class who spent their entire college career exposed to the social networking phenomenon. I think this is going to further drive apart the generational gaps that exist in workplaces.

I'm actually in the middle; I went to college just as the web was becoming popular. It was a really neat toy...sites like Yahoo and online retailers were just getting started. We used it just like that...a useful way to get stuff done, and maybe sent emails to people we knew.

The whole "Web 2.0" jump is a big adjustment for us 30-year-old fogies. Now the web is someplace you live your life. I've never had any desire to put up a blog about my pets, for example, because I know no one cares. I've also never seen the need to put up a Myspace page. This takes up a significant portion of social networkers' lifetimes. They work incredibly hard on their online presence, as if it were a vital component of their survival.

Anyway, back to the workplace. The "truly old school" is on the way out, but people like me are coming up to take their places at the top 10 years or so from now. Having an entire generation of new employees who have zero attention span, can't write in complete sentences and find regular work boring is probably going to cause friction. (I'm going to sound _really_ old here...how many times have you seen emails going out to customers at your job with sentences like "can u gt me the po#s b4 friday? thx") That drives me nuts -- please take two seconds and proofread e-mail! The other thing I might see happening is the "inflated self-worth" phenomenon. Someone needs to bring some of these people back to reality and make them realize that none of us is special.

I'm off to have my prune juice and medication now...

Enterprise Social Computing.

Social computing is supposed to fetch ~ $750 MM by year 2011 as per Gartner!

Many VPs, Directors, CXOs, do not understand why social computing is so 'in' thing may be (they are old) but the youngsters do understand it.

In the US especially, with the huge number of experienced people retiring in the next 5 years and some young blood joining the ranks, it is important in two aspects to implement social software in the enterprises too.

The knowledge of the old will be lost if not captured. But any amount of documentation is not going to capture knowledge as effectively as the informal atmosphere of blogs/wikis allows a person to do so. Organizational story telling is very important in this aspect. Not many people are keen to prepare formal documents confirming to templates, standards, etc. in a huge enterprise. But many are willing to try their hand in writing stories of their experiences at work.

Thus social networking & computing is going to act as big contributor for institutionalizing the old knowledge which will be not available the next few years.

The younger generation which will join in the next five years OTOH, will already be very well accustomed to the whole concept of social computing & networking, mostly without even being aware of them. Having a social network with the enterprise is going to allow these bunch of people to mingle better & easily in addition to learning form the system.

BTW, the young blood will anyway try to bring in the social networking concept into the enterprise in spite of all the regulations against them (they are currently viewed as time wasters in the enterprise environment). So it would be prudent & proactive of the CSO (Chief Security Officer) to allow enterprise social software with the organization in everybody's interest.

Also, the growing trend these days is to telecommute, work from home. In such an environment, social networking at work does make a lot of sense. Also, this is going to be helpful in enterprises which are spread out geographically too, to bind the various dispersed diaspora & workgroups.

[shameless plugin]

We (my group at my employers place) are involved in preparing a (work in progress) modular vendor agnostic framework [cognizant.com] which would ideally involve marrying web 2.0, social networking (social computing in general) with traditional CRM systems. Our initial offerings would presumably be using a cacophony of open source solutions already available.

[/shameless plugin]

In due course of our R&D we found that IBM is already into the social software arena & has launched an enterprise version called Lotus Connections [ibm.com].

We are now partnering with them to figure out what it is, what are its capabilities and how can it fit into our framework.

IBM has already been in touch with many big fortune 500 enterprises and are talking about multi million dollar deals!

The stuff doesn't look very techie if you are already aware of what wikis, blogs, social networking, etc. are. But it does provide that enterprise touch to the whole thing of social networking & related stuffs.

Standards Now!

Social networking sites are a great idea (whose time has finally come, it seems), but the implementation could use some improvement. What we need is standards, so that profiles from one site can be linked from another. I have been dragged into one social networking site kicking and screaming, and I am on a few other sites that happen to do social networking (though I joined for different reasons), but I'd rather avoid them altogether as long as there isn't a widely implemented standard so that I can ACTUALLY LINK TO PROFILES, instead of having to ask my friends to please create a profile on that other site as well, because that's what I happen to use.

Why Don't I Like Social Networking Sites?

The other day, someone asked me what I think of Myspace. Now, I really have something against the site, but I couldn't really explain it to her. It just feels...wrong. I noticed this sentiment is common among geeks, even geeks like me who are actually sociable people. I have been too tired to really try putting my finger on what exactly it is that is wrong with Myspace (and its ilk), but maybe others have had better luck. If you recognize my sentiment and have maneged to put it into words, could you please post?

Which one?

Facebook is cleaner and nicer to use but their are so many applications all doing the same thing, fun wall, super fun wall, super dooper fun shout wall with candy - and it gets messy.

Myspace is messy by design but the prepubesant little shits like the colours and crap and seems to be the most popular.

Bebo, hi-5 and the rest are smaller and less useful.

Its like IM again, some use AIM, some yahoo and others msn - all offering a different experience and you end up going where your friends are... like it all not.

Quite Easily Avoidable

They are eminently avoidable. Not "unavoidable" at all... rather, I feel they are mostly unoriginal, unattractive, undesirable, ungainly, unpleasant...

Everything old is new again

Through a decade of technological "progress" the Internet self-important-erati have slowly been inventing the equivalent of the venerable BBS. What's worse, those who arrived to the party late actually think they've created something new that hasn't been done before.

It's both amusing and frustrating to see the BBS spoken of as a technology of yesteryear, while mainstream Internet culture gets closer and closer to being an exact duplicate of BBS culture. Strip away all of the fancy buzzwords and you've basically got the same thing: people connecting to each other online.

As a BBS sysop of nearly 20 years (please visit us online!) [citadel.org] I can say with certainty that nothing has changed. Everything old is new again. And may I say to the "Web 2.0" and "social network" people: you didn't invent it.

It's a PR hit

Paul Graham wrote about this stuff [paulgraham.com]. A cursory glance at the article shows that it's little more than a press release for Facebook. As Graham puts it:

Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.

Re:Facebook is useless

> But for the anti-social types, it's just a waste of time.

Surely not.

What possible reason could a social networking site have for not appealing to the anti-social?