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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."
still haven't joined one. facebook, myspace, hi5... who cares. I know who my friends are.
I'm surprised linkedin wasn't mentioned. It's getting a lot of use by the professional social networking crowd.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
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!
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.
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.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
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.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
The real benefit of facebook, at least as far as I'm concerned, is not the ability to poke or post or message or whatever facebook communication you like best. I use it effectively like a huge address book.
When I'm heading home for the summer, and I think to myself, "Hey, it would be cool to hang out with my old HS buddies. I wonder what they're up to." I can start up facebook, search for them by name, friend them, and get their phone numbers.
I don't have a little address book like my parents did until recently (I know that now they have an excel spreadsheet doing the same job, and I don't have that either.) I have facebook, which is like an address book that I can access from anywhere with the web.
That's my 2 cents.
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!) 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.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!