Social Networking
Sunday, February 08, 2009
What is Social Networking? connecting and interacting with people, online, through a variety of tools, which are mostly available in one site. Members of these sites create a set of connections with other people who they can call contacts, friends, followers, etc. All these connections form a network of contacts through which social interactions happen, hence the name social networking. There are hundreds of Social Networking sites out there. You may know names like MySpace, LifeJournal, Bebo, WAYN, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Orkut, YouTube, Windows Life Spaces, etc, etc, etc.
I have tried some of these and others... and with little success, except maybe for Facebook. But I have to say that the magic is fading.
What do I call success? Well, for me, a successful SN Site is one where
1. I can find friends and does not get boring (because people keep on creating new interesting content)
2. It should have a series of attractive interaction, communication tools which
3. work on my computer and on my mobile phone.
Each of the points above deserve a separate discussion on their own. In this post I will focus on point 1, and will leave the other 2 for later.
Why did I stick with Facebook? I use Facebook not because Facebook is Facebook but because there I can find people I can interact with. And those are people I have met at some point in my life: friends, family, colleagues, someone I met in a holiday, in a conference, etc, or people who are friends of friends and I know by name. Of course there are people I have met in my life that I don’t like, I block those. I know there are people who send friend requests to everyone because they want to meet new people or just want to have millions of friends. I don’t. I like to have a network of contacts I know because then it is easier for me to talk to them, because there is something to talk about. As it happens Facebook is that network. If I could find the same people elsewhere I'd probably move. This is a personal opinion of course, and you may have different reasons to join a social networking site.
I started with this Social Networking thing years ago. I think it was in 2003 (or was it 2004???) when I got all these emails from friends inviting me to join Hi5. I joined Hi5 and found it a bit dull, so I used it very little. I kept on adding friends though. On rare occasions I would upload pictures or comment on friends profiles.
When I did my PhD fieldwork (2004-2005), I turned to Social Networking as well as to other online media (discussion boards, weblogs, etc), to collect my data from. I remember I opened an account in MySpace, as at that time that was THE PLACE TO BE. When I got there I couldn't find anyone I knew. All my friends were in Hi5. I kept the account though because I was supposed to be looking for information for my PhD. My research topic was related to software development and I joined some software development online communities. However I also needed to understand the dynamics of online communities to write my methodology chapter and MySpace proved to be very useful... as an object of study of course but not as a social networking tool for my personal use.
I kept that account for months and as far as I remember I couldn't engage on a personal level. It might be my nature but I didn't feel comfortable with talking to strangers who were so different from me. I made friends with a Poet though. A guy who would send his friends a poem maybe every week. Sometimes he would send me romantic notes! At the beginning I thought it was fun but after a while I found them boring. I like poetry but not cheesy poetry. However I had a good look at his profile and at the way he kept on getting new friends who liked his poems. His friends would also send him poems so he had a huge archive of amateur poetry... and big number of fans. Another interesting character I found on MySpace was this lesbian movie director, who had recently made a movie, about lesbians, and who had a large fan base of lesbians :). Everyone was asking her things about the movie and the actresses, etc. One interesting thing she did on MySpace was to schedule a free online screening of her movie. Free for her MySpace friends. That attracted even more hundreds of friends. Her profile was exploding with posts from fans!
At the same time I also joined YouTube and found Terra Naomi a singer who was advertising herself there. I subscribed to her videos and saw how her fan base grew as well. She made her videos at a small studio. Some of them where guitar lessons! And the kids loved them! So did I and I also liked her music. One interesting thing I witnessed here is hundreds of people video taping themselves playing her music. I thought she was doing well. And I think she did. The other day I saw a CD of her in a London shop.
So yes, MySpace and YouTube were working for them, and did work for my PhD as well. But they didn't work for me. I closed those accounts when I finished my thesis.
Then two years ago a friend of mine invited me to Facebook. At that time it was restricted to students or university staff, so you needed a university email address to open an account. I didn't like Facebook that much at the beginning because I had very few friends. but i liked its desing. I thought it was simple and clean. As time passed, Facebook opened to everyone, and my friends started to join in. I found it a very useful tool for keeping in touch with people and for having fun. I found friends from my primary school there... or should I say they found me!
I have engaged with FB at a personal level, but been able to think about it a bit as well. One of the main characteristics of the Facebook community is that everyone one seems to be self-centred. And this might be due to the design of the site. Most interactions I see are people showing what they are, have or do in their profiles. So for example I don't need to talk to everyone, or send messages to my friends, I just need to put some stuff in my profile and they will see that. A friend of mine can upload a holiday video and I see what he did. He doesn’t need to e-mail me. By uploading his video he is telling his network of contacts what he has done. That might save him a lot of time. I may make some comments... about how cool he looks in his video and those comments will be kept on his profile for others to see. If I go to the movies and like (or hate the film) I can write a comment on the movie app and my friends will see that. I don't have to tell them one by one.
There is one thing about FB I never liked though. It is all these useless, dumb, mind numbing applications where you can hugh people, or send butterflies, or complete stupid questionnaires, or find out how male/female you are. I really hate those!
Anyway, after two years of use I have to say, I am not using Facebook as much as I used to, but I am still there... and all the links to my friends profiles are still there too. So I can come back to them any time I feel like. However I think I am bit tired of doing the same thing all the time, logging in and checking my feeds to see what
other people are doing, and then commenting on how cool they look in their pictures or, uploading my pictures so my friends can tell me how wonderful my life is. Facebook hasn’t changed much, its core is still the same, but I think I have changed. I know Facebook will be there when I feel the need to come back but for the moment I am seeking new pastures. (I think my Facebook will end up like my Hi5, it's there, I am there, but I don't use it very much.)
A few weeks ago I opened an account in Twitter, only because a friend of mine said it was better than Facebook. And he is in love with Twitter, so I thought I should give it a try. It might be that within an environment like twitter’s I may be able to talk to strangers! I think it is still too soon for me to say if I like it or hate it. What I can say now is that Twitter is the equivalent of the FB status. Everyone communicates by saying what they are doing, not to someone but to everyone. And unlike FB you don't need to be a friend to see what someone is doing. I have few followers there but I will wait a few weeks to see what happens.
I have tried some of these and others... and with little success, except maybe for Facebook. But I have to say that the magic is fading.
What do I call success? Well, for me, a successful SN Site is one where
1. I can find friends and does not get boring (because people keep on creating new interesting content)
2. It should have a series of attractive interaction, communication tools which
3. work on my computer and on my mobile phone.
Each of the points above deserve a separate discussion on their own. In this post I will focus on point 1, and will leave the other 2 for later.
Why did I stick with Facebook? I use Facebook not because Facebook is Facebook but because there I can find people I can interact with. And those are people I have met at some point in my life: friends, family, colleagues, someone I met in a holiday, in a conference, etc, or people who are friends of friends and I know by name. Of course there are people I have met in my life that I don’t like, I block those. I know there are people who send friend requests to everyone because they want to meet new people or just want to have millions of friends. I don’t. I like to have a network of contacts I know because then it is easier for me to talk to them, because there is something to talk about. As it happens Facebook is that network. If I could find the same people elsewhere I'd probably move. This is a personal opinion of course, and you may have different reasons to join a social networking site.I started with this Social Networking thing years ago. I think it was in 2003 (or was it 2004???) when I got all these emails from friends inviting me to join Hi5. I joined Hi5 and found it a bit dull, so I used it very little. I kept on adding friends though. On rare occasions I would upload pictures or comment on friends profiles.
When I did my PhD fieldwork (2004-2005), I turned to Social Networking as well as to other online media (discussion boards, weblogs, etc), to collect my data from. I remember I opened an account in MySpace, as at that time that was THE PLACE TO BE. When I got there I couldn't find anyone I knew. All my friends were in Hi5. I kept the account though because I was supposed to be looking for information for my PhD. My research topic was related to software development and I joined some software development online communities. However I also needed to understand the dynamics of online communities to write my methodology chapter and MySpace proved to be very useful... as an object of study of course but not as a social networking tool for my personal use.
I kept that account for months and as far as I remember I couldn't engage on a personal level. It might be my nature but I didn't feel comfortable with talking to strangers who were so different from me. I made friends with a Poet though. A guy who would send his friends a poem maybe every week. Sometimes he would send me romantic notes! At the beginning I thought it was fun but after a while I found them boring. I like poetry but not cheesy poetry. However I had a good look at his profile and at the way he kept on getting new friends who liked his poems. His friends would also send him poems so he had a huge archive of amateur poetry... and big number of fans. Another interesting character I found on MySpace was this lesbian movie director, who had recently made a movie, about lesbians, and who had a large fan base of lesbians :). Everyone was asking her things about the movie and the actresses, etc. One interesting thing she did on MySpace was to schedule a free online screening of her movie. Free for her MySpace friends. That attracted even more hundreds of friends. Her profile was exploding with posts from fans!
At the same time I also joined YouTube and found Terra Naomi a singer who was advertising herself there. I subscribed to her videos and saw how her fan base grew as well. She made her videos at a small studio. Some of them where guitar lessons! And the kids loved them! So did I and I also liked her music. One interesting thing I witnessed here is hundreds of people video taping themselves playing her music. I thought she was doing well. And I think she did. The other day I saw a CD of her in a London shop.So yes, MySpace and YouTube were working for them, and did work for my PhD as well. But they didn't work for me. I closed those accounts when I finished my thesis.
Then two years ago a friend of mine invited me to Facebook. At that time it was restricted to students or university staff, so you needed a university email address to open an account. I didn't like Facebook that much at the beginning because I had very few friends. but i liked its desing. I thought it was simple and clean. As time passed, Facebook opened to everyone, and my friends started to join in. I found it a very useful tool for keeping in touch with people and for having fun. I found friends from my primary school there... or should I say they found me!
I have engaged with FB at a personal level, but been able to think about it a bit as well. One of the main characteristics of the Facebook community is that everyone one seems to be self-centred. And this might be due to the design of the site. Most interactions I see are people showing what they are, have or do in their profiles. So for example I don't need to talk to everyone, or send messages to my friends, I just need to put some stuff in my profile and they will see that. A friend of mine can upload a holiday video and I see what he did. He doesn’t need to e-mail me. By uploading his video he is telling his network of contacts what he has done. That might save him a lot of time. I may make some comments... about how cool he looks in his video and those comments will be kept on his profile for others to see. If I go to the movies and like (or hate the film) I can write a comment on the movie app and my friends will see that. I don't have to tell them one by one.
There is one thing about FB I never liked though. It is all these useless, dumb, mind numbing applications where you can hugh people, or send butterflies, or complete stupid questionnaires, or find out how male/female you are. I really hate those!Anyway, after two years of use I have to say, I am not using Facebook as much as I used to, but I am still there... and all the links to my friends profiles are still there too. So I can come back to them any time I feel like. However I think I am bit tired of doing the same thing all the time, logging in and checking my feeds to see what
other people are doing, and then commenting on how cool they look in their pictures or, uploading my pictures so my friends can tell me how wonderful my life is. Facebook hasn’t changed much, its core is still the same, but I think I have changed. I know Facebook will be there when I feel the need to come back but for the moment I am seeking new pastures. (I think my Facebook will end up like my Hi5, it's there, I am there, but I don't use it very much.)A few weeks ago I opened an account in Twitter, only because a friend of mine said it was better than Facebook. And he is in love with Twitter, so I thought I should give it a try. It might be that within an environment like twitter’s I may be able to talk to strangers! I think it is still too soon for me to say if I like it or hate it. What I can say now is that Twitter is the equivalent of the FB status. Everyone communicates by saying what they are doing, not to someone but to everyone. And unlike FB you don't need to be a friend to see what someone is doing. I have few followers there but I will wait a few weeks to see what happens.
Labels:
Facebook,
Hi5,
MySpace,
social networking,
YouTube
Posts
so you get bored with technology...? and then you look for new pastures, will technology get bored with you...?
I like what you said about facebook being there for when you need it, like a good old friend. Maybe HI5 and the others were not such good friends after all.
To me the good thing about facebook is the people who join and with whom this is the only way to be in touch.
Let us know about other 'pastures' you find in your surfing the vast and infinite net Major
yo ando en socialnetworking 2.0 porque como tu dices el FB me había aburrido. Luego de desatrasarme de chismes de mis amig@s que no había visto hace marras, el FB pierde gracia. Un profe de aquí tiene mil cuentas abiertas y un día lo encontré en twitter, que para mi aún no tiene mucha gracia... será como todas las redes que entre más gente haya en la tuya pues más entretenido es. Pero gracias a ese contacto estoy explorando otras cosas, por ejemplo spotify donde puedes crear listas colaborativas de música.
De otro lado pienso que tampoco me gusta estar tan expuesta en la red, que todo el mundo sepa todo de mi y creo que eso es una barrera inmensa para todo esto.
Me gustó mucho tu post y me identifico totalmente :) además si no fuera por todo este social networking mis horas eternas en el lab serían muy aburridas.
I understand your disappointment with SN, particularly FB. I tried it once and couldn’t find a reason to keep my account. If I wanted to share meaningful info about my life or my kids’ pictures, FB wouldn’t be a good choice because in order to be “sociable,” I had to add acquaintances I don’t know that well as my FB “friends.” I would still have to email in private my personal happenings with the added task of coming up with info for the FB “audience.”
Your comment about FB being impersonal is right on the nail. For real communication I rather use email. To communicate with a particular group (work, school, or any other shared interest) I use the ancient “Yahoo Groups” or private websites that give you the functionality of FB without the lack of privacy. In both cases you can post to the group or email individuals, any updates go directly to your email so you are never out of the loop. For sharing my thoughts to the world, I would use a blog. To keep up with what others have to say, I sign up for email updates ;) All from the comfort of my own email account.
Why is SN, FB, so popular? Maybe millions of people like us suddenly find themselves sucked in by the black hole of novelty ;) Could it be self-centeredness? Society’s eternal adolescence syndrome? I don't know, but like anything else, technology can be very useful or a total waste of time.
I've been social networking all my life in the real world! Its just been expanded by using all these web 2.0 apps. I think that's the key - distance and velocity.
When I first went to Uni, I expanded (or maybe shifted) my social network. The next step change for me was Twitter. As we've talked about offline, I'm very much of the view that Fb is all about looking backwards, whilst Twitter looks forwards. Not that either of these are bad; and I indeed think they're complementary.
What do I mean? Well, when I look at my Fb friends lists I see a collection of old friends and acquaintances who I want to stay in contact with but not necessarily every day. However on Twitter I just put myself out there. I tweet away, not bothered who's reading my posts. Meanwhile I follow complete strangers whom I find interesting, funny, unique, silly, informative, or newsworthy. Doing so has expanded my social network significantly and sped it up. This may be uncomfortable for some, but I think the key to Twitter is the 140 character limit. Quite simply, you can't tell the world everything about yourself in 140 characters so don't try. Besides, few followers are spying on you or stalking you. The majority don't want to get to know you like your Fb friends do, so just have fun with it.