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Social Networking in the Digital Age
An anonymous reader writes "It used to be if you wanted to win more friends, influence more people or make more money, you bought one of those self-improvement tomes and tried to pump up your personality.
These days, all you have to do is go online and join a "social networking" site. The pumping will be done for you."
Audioscrobbler is another site with a similar purpose. Although it doesn't directly link users together by their musical tastes, it is easy enough to find people who frequently listen to the same artists that you enjoy by looking at the rankings.
KappaStone
I help run a website that has social networking aspects, Mediachest.com and have looked around at all the other social networking sites, and they don't really seem to offer much. They either try to replace existing communities with a site that has fewer features than the original or they are worthless, slow lists of people who are essentially strangers. Sure, it is nice if you want to look at profiles of girls without having to pay to contact them, but are any of the sites any more useful than that? Mediachest is more about finding new people and sharing items. It is like the distributed library project but centralized so it is easier to find things. Social networking can be very valuable when trying to find a DVD to watch or a book to borrow. Social networking can be more than just dating.
While I see some great potential for these types of sites, I have to wonder about the strength or veracity of the social networks they claim to foster. For example, Orkut tells me I'm now "connected" to over 150,000 folks, even though I only have three "friends" added to my profile. Just because I joined to the Debian/Apache/PHP/EFF/Dachshund forums doesn't mean all the other members even know of my existence, or care.
Still though, it does do wonders for the ego . . .
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
I disagree. I use LJ, as do many of my friends (RL and otherwise). Pretty much everyone posts daily or semi-daily. It's almost a closed group of about 15 people, and I know every one of them. There's none of the "cliquey" things you describe going on. If you have these problems with LJ, maybe you should rethink who's on your friends list.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
I'll invite you in. All you need to do is send me your e-mail address. Credit card information is optional.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
I have recently been trying out another social networking site -- ecademy.com. It started in the UK apparently, and is just now starting to get some USA folks on it.
I've been on Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, and now Ecademy. One thing is for sure, there is no such thing as "if you've seen one you've seen them all". Every one of these sites has unique features and a unique atmosphere to it. LinkedIn is very polished and professional and formal. Ecademy is in many way the opposite -- people there will say hi just because they noticed you online, even though you have never met them. The openness of ecademy certainly makes it a lot friendlier.
All of these sites are tools that can be used or abused just like anything else.
I'll invite people too, but my domain expired today cause I'm a moron...anyways email me at gepeto@aliencow.com, eventually my spam filter will reply to you when my domain is back up...so I guess by tonight I could invite a few Slashbots.
I don't like to be asked to quantify my level of friendship with people, it is only my business.
IIRC, those ratings can only be seen by you.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
There was a girl I often saw at local metal shows, but we just didn't talk much, and when we did, the conversations were pretty short. But she mentioned one of these 'social network' sites (a really cheezy and unreliable one too) and out of curiosity I checked it out, "friended" her, and started making journal entries with comments about various local metal shows. So did she. Then we started commenting on each other's journals. We got to know each other better in these "batch mode " communications, and that carried over to when we are in person.
Not dating or anything like that (nor do I expect that to happen, we'd be pretty incompatible, I think -- though she does happen to be a pretty hot babe :-) but now we're a lot more familiar and friendly. One of these dumb sites turned a near-stranger into a friendly acquaintance. I like that! It makes me want everyone in my local metal scene to get on that cheezy website.
Ultimately, these things are just another tool, which can be used stupidly or smartly. But having more tools for communication is better, especially given how socially disfunctional people are these days... Ok, maybe the disfunction is a consequence of all the other tools. (e.g. people using computers instead of talking face-to-face) But the computers are not going away, and the people are not getting any less fucked-up, so you might as well use and leverage the tools.
I think you have a damned good point there. AFAIK, except for celebrities, the potential doesn't seem to be getting abused much, but it's certainly possible. Obviously these networks should be integrated with the PGP WoT.Actually, that would a good challenge for me: Can I explain the PGP WoT to my new non-hacker, Windows98-using, 18-year-old-metal-chick friend? Hmmm...
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
You use it however you want to. I use it to highlight comments of people whose past comments I've enjoyed reading. You can set a bonus in your user preferences for users who are your friends, and then when you see someone you want that bonus to apply to in the future, you click the circle next to their name and set your relationship. Combine with mod points, and it becomes a powerful tool for bringing about change in the moderation around here...if you're into that sort of thing. Or, you could find a few people who actually write in their journals regularly, and use the friends system to keep up with their new entries. I also like to check people's posting histories and so on who I find in my fans list, though I do this less now that I have trouble keeping track of who my old fans are and who is new. (If you want me to notice you, put yourself on my freaks list...)
/. is that there's no need to use all the features to have a good experience. You decide your own level of participation.
Anyway, part of what's great about
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.