Social Networking, you can’t seem to escape it these days. It seems that most website’s try to incorporate some kind of social features into them, and everyone you know including your Grandma has a MySpace account.
I sometimes feel that I am a little behind on social networking, I’m pretty critical of it, and it has taken me along time to find some networks I am comfortable with. I tend to have very small networks, because A) I’m not an attention whore, and B) I prefer to network with people I know, ar at least have something in common with.
Here is a little breakdown of my opinions on the various networks we have around right now. Keep in mind these are MY opinions, feel free to leave your own in the comments, or to point out things I may not realize.
God I despise MySpace. MySpace made me really hate social networking for a long time. I never really understood it, it reminded me of the crappy angelfire and geocities websites we built as kids, only even more retarded. The only good use I ever found for it was adding bands I like as friends, so I could get their news updates. Eventually I ended up deleting because I got tired of the gazillion friend requests I got from cam whores everyday. It also drives me crazy because EVERYONE has one, and it’s hard for me to get some of my less tech oriented friends to move on to something better.
The current reigning champ in my opinion. It’s still kind of douchey like MySpace at times, but it can be fun, and does actually have some good networking features. I really like the photo tagging features, and apps that tie in with some of my other networks. Apps can get annoying at times, because they want you to spam your friends, but a good percentage are not so noisy. Facebook to me is like Social Entertainment. It’s a place where me and my friends can play little games, share pictures, and poke fun at each other.
Last.fm is one of my favorite social networking site’s, and oddly enough the one where I have the least friends. I mainly use it as a place to discover new music, kind of like I did with pandora back in the day. I really should make better use of the site.
Twitter is a pretty fun little app. It’s good for sharing ideas, cool links, new blog posts, and general randomness. It’s fun to use at work, to keep up with things people are doing throughout the day. I follow a couple of friends, some bloggers I like, and some Internet personalities that I look up to. It’s cool to see ideas as they are forming, and get a glimpse into people’s everyday lives. I’m interested to see how twitter does in the long run, as right now it seems to be mainly used by Geeks, and tech savvy peeps. Alot of people just don’t seem to understand it.
Pownce is something I tried to get into, but just couldn’t. It is a good idea, microblogging + file sharing and collaboration, but personally I just don’t have a use for it, as I have other tools I use on a daily basis that handle all these tasks for me.
FriendFeed is my newest addiction. I just recently started using it, and finally feel I have hit the nail on the head. I like how it brings all my existing networks together in a way, and the same for my friends. It’s alot easier to just watch my feed throughout the day than to try and keep up with everyone on 5 or so other sites. FriendFeed to me seems much more social than other networks. It’s all about sharing, communication, and collaboration. There are no games, or picture trading apps. No walls to write dorky messages on or share fake drinks. It’s just information, and that is what I have been craving.
Digg is the network I have been a member of for the longest, and is the only site on the net I have constantly logged into daily for the past few years. I was a heavy slashdot user back in the day, and digg was like a breath of fresh air when it hit the scene. Things have changed alot since then, and the digg crowd has changed dramatically, but it’s still the first site I hit in the morning, and the last I hit before I go to bed.
It will be real interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years. We are only scratching the surface of social networking, and it is exciting.
Google has released Lively in the usual google fashion, as a beta. I spent about a whole five minutes playing around with it before I realised it is a total kids toy. It’s hard to find a good description, but here is what Wikipedia has to say about it.
“Google Lively is a web-based virtual environment produced by Google Inc. similar to the acclaimed “Second Life“. It is currently only supported on Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, using Windows XP or Windows Vista.”
The avatars are very cartoonish, and seem to be kind of a cross between Nintendo Mii’s and the avatars from Sony’s Home. You create your own custom rooms, which you can decorate with furniture and such, and also you apparently have the ability to integrate other social networks into your room.
I’m not all that impressed with it, but i’m also sure I don’t fall into the target audience. I am sure it is a good alternative to Second Life for the youngsters, as their parents won’t have to worry quite so much about the perv’s. I’m sure they will be there, but at least they won’t be dressed as a wolf with a huge dong.
Here’s a pic of me hanging out in my bare ass room