Slashdot Mirror
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."
Very true. Once you start meeting new friends online, it switches to SMS and phone calls, and maybe rendez-vous in real life. However, most people keep communicating via the online community sites because it's free/cheap. E.g-> a virtual gift costs less than a gift in real life + the intention remains the same. Sending a message over facebook, hi5 or myspace, is free as compared to SMS (it's not free in many countries), etc.
Do I require the c-sig package to have a signature?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
It sure can smack of public relations excercise by YUNiTi. But, like all things, making guesses or assuming things can lead to bad nasty places. This may be completely out of context, but since this was metioned, why not delve in a little deeper. First a little background. YUNiTi has been developed solely by my brother and I, for the last two years. We feel there are so many useful things that networking sites could do to truly turn into a great tool, and yet they don't. They worry about things to keep people busy, like gifts, and "my status". Things you know are there to keep teens on their site all day and to keep their adds margin up. So, here we are the two of us, with a cool idea, with lots of weekend and nite hours put in. With no money to get the word out. So,we sent a few emails out to some publications, and the guys at SNL found it an intersing and notable site that had some potential. And he decided to write it about it. Its like you have a great cration, but you have no way of showing the world. So, i ask this of the slashdot comunity? How do you get something out you've spend so much time and truly belive in?
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.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.