Social networking part 2
24/07/2007
Software expert
Ian Moulster
Microsoft
My social network is still mainly email, text and phone. Maybe I’m stuck in the Dark Ages. I’m signed up to Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, but only actually use Facebook. And although it’s sort of fun, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that social networking of this ilk isn’t for me.
My difficulty with social networks is that I struggle to see the point of most of them. Take Twitter: why would anyone want to know what I’m doing 24 hours a day? Why would I go to the trouble of texting the site with the exciting news that I’m on a train or watching TV or shopping? It just seems daft. Or worse: the sign of something serious missing in your life if you obsessively need to tell the world every time you draw breath. There’s almost certainly an age angle here – it’s probably the same reason that I send about five text messages a week while my 15-year-old nephew sends at least 500. With most things, I’m keen to adopt anything new and even faintly cool, but social networking sites all seem to follow this kind of curve for me: initially kind of fun, pretty quickly reach a “why am I doing this?” stage followed by stagnation. And death. Well, death of my interest anyhow.
Maybe I need to try harder. Or maybe it’s just that participation doesn’t seem to require much creativity or even much by way of content. In fact, it’s probably all about some kind of low-level currents of social activity that pass me by, which is almost certainly the same reason I can’t get excited about which celebrity is flirting with whom, or what reality TV show “star” said what. Or maybe I really am just too old and too boring and too miserable to get it.
I’m not giving up yet. I’ll continue to take a look at every new social networking fad that comes along and see whether it lights the fire and really gets me interested. To date, nothing has really managed to do that. Perhaps there’s a site just around the corner that’s perfect for me, but I’m not holding my breath.
Ian Moulster is senior product manager in Microsoft’s Developer & Platform division in the UK
Legal expert
Raj Mahapatra
vLegal
The social networks I participate in (“use” is rather negative, and I have to admit I use most that I hear of, yet participate with few), whether they be online or real-world networks, have one thing in common for me: the quality of the people I interact with. The tools available or the plug-ins that you can use facilitate the network, but without the quality, they don’t keep my attention. I’ve found LinkedIn strangely satisfying. I like the idea of degrees of separation and asking friends to introduce you. I like the fact that my friends get to vet people for me and me for them.
I got introduced to Facebook via a Canadian friend of mine. He just said I had to get involved as great people where using it. I’m particularly enamoured by the way that there’s a social ethos behind the site rather than a business ethos. Photos are so often personal rather than professional that it’s unsurprising that the emphasis here is on supporting/expanding your friend circle rather than work circle. It has to be applauded when all around you have the likes of Ryze and Ecademy, which seem like the place to be if you want to exchange calling cards. I still use Ryze occasionally, but it’s very much “use”, and I wonder why most of the time.
Raj Mahapatra is MD of vLegal, a company with an aim to redefine the legal services industry
Ecommerce specialist
Chris Barling
Actinic
This question doesn’t so much illustrate the north/south divide as the young and wrinkly divide. Dare I say it, I’m in that older demographic that doesn’t really socialise online. This doesn’t mean that I don’t use forums, blogs and so on, particularly in a work context. It’s just that I don’t form my social group there.
My 17-year-old son, however, is a different case. His life revolves around online communities, and he even met his first girlfriend online. His chosen space is Vent, associated with World of Warcraft. Visiting some friends, the story is the same. They gave me a long lecture on why they avoid computers just in time for me to notice their teenager logging out of Facebook.
I know about MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, but I don’t care. I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s about learnt behaviours (I’m too set in my ways) or just that I found many of my friends before these networks sprang up. Yet, I don’t feel old. Maybe I should get out of my comfort zone and get myself a Second Life. Or would that just be taken as a sign of a midlife crisis?
Chris founded the well-known ecommerce software development company Actinic in 1996
Web standards expert
Christian Heilmann
Yahoo
It’s stunning how many networks are popping up left, right and centre. The first I used (and am still using strictly for professional reasons) is LinkedIn. The main reason is that it enables me to keep track of ex-colleagues and see where they’re going, which resulted in a lot of good tips and also some hires. I also use Flickr a lot, as it’s a great way to store your photos and keep in contact with other people, and get to know a part of their life outside the written word. It’s a great door-opener for conversations. Calling someone with “hey, you’ve just been on holiday, how was it?” is a lot easier than “I want to talk to you about something”. I also spent a lot of time coding my own image gallery scripts, and they’re a pain to do right. Furthermore, I use Twitter a lot for reasons I don’t quite know, but it’s good to quickly connect to people without installing all kind of messenger clients. I only hate it that Technorati indexes Twitter – it really messes with the quality of their search results. I lately started using Dopplr, as it enables you to easily meet up with people in their cities. I use YouTube, but not much to connect to other people, and Slidespace to keep up with presentations of colleagues. Last but not least, I started using Facebook to dabble with the APIs, and I signed up for MySpace to see a friend’s band photos, but can’t be bothered to dive in deeper. It just looks like GeoCities with comments.
Christian works for Yahoo as a web developer, and he’s a self-proclaimed "web standards nut"
Rights activist
Suw Charman
Open Rights Group
The first social network I joined was Friendster, followed later on by orkut, but I found both of them to be pretty useless and I can’t even remember my passwords any more. Unless a social network does something useful for me, I don’t bother with it. I’m a member of a lot more networks than I actually use, but these are the main sites I’m active on: LinkedIn – it’s been about six years since I last needed to write a CV, but I use LinkedIn to provide people with my employment history, which isn’t written up in so much detail on my blog. It’s much better for me as a freelance for this information to be on the web in a standard format that anyone can view than locked away in an out of date Word file somewhere. Flickr – I’ve been using for years, but I admit that I tend to use it more in a “broadcast” way than a social way.
Twitter I adore – it stops me going completely barking mad when I’m on my own and craving a little social contact. There’s also a sort of Twitter serendipity at work that results in a lot of impromptu meet-ups that would otherwise never happen.
Dopplr is a new network for frequent fliers, which I’m sad to say I am, and many of my friends are. It’s nice to be able to see who’s going to be in town and when, and whose trips are going to coincide with mine.
Suw is executive director of the Open Rights Group, which raises awareness of digital rights issues
Hosting provider
Neil Hodson
1&1 Internet
While indeed controversial, social networking can be a very useful side to the internet. I was quite late to it but, nowadays, it can prove incredibly useful for finding people, making new friends and generally being nosy. I tend to use the more boring, grown-up ones such as LinkedIn, which save me time at work. I’ve had a go at MySpace, too, and it was rather addictive. The sheer variety of people you meet is a breath of fresh air. I am yet to check out the latest must-have, Facebook. I prefer to check out people properly before I become their friend rather than just “nudging” away.
I must say, as a web user, these sites are a lot of fun and embody essentially what the internet was created to do: bring people together. However, if you ask me as a father, I would have to say that they can be dangerous, and I would be uneasy letting my kids use them at all unsupervised.
Neil Hodson is the UK general manager at 1&1 Internet, a global web hosting company and domain registrar with more than five million customers
Tech journalist
Scott Carney
[Freelancer]
My spam folder is full of invitations to MySpace, LinkedIn, orkut, Friendster, Picasa and other friend-making services out there. There’s a glut on the social networking scene. I can only be faithful to one or two groups at a time and if I joined them all, I’d feel a little slutty. At the moment, I’m on Facebook and Couch Surfing. Facebook is entirely impractical since I’m a little too old to have a college ID, and all my friends on it are just filling in their facial hair. On Couch Surfing, I get random people drooling on my living-room sofa from time to time. I wonder if it has all been worth it.
Scott is a freelance technology journalist and a damn fine photographer to boot
Site owner
Martin Hoscik
Beyond Ego Ltd
None. Technology’s great, but it’s possible to take too much of our lives online. These sites are that one step too far: the idea of sharing my experiences with friends via a social network site rather than meeting up, writing or calling just doesn’t appeal.
A .net reader, Martin is sales director at web hosting company, Beyond Ego Ltd
Accessibility expert
Julie Howell
Fortune Cookie
I use very few social networking sites, and those I do use I use very little. Why is this? It probably has a lot to do with how I work. I’m a public speaker, so I’m very comfortable addressing large audiences as well as individuals face to face. If I need to know new people, someone in my huge network of friends and acquaintances will pick up the phone or drop me an email to suggest it. People who are keen to meet me in person tend to track me down at conferences and seminars, or they simply email me. It may be that I’m already so well-connected that online social networks have no pull for me. I use LinkedIn, but only as a glorified address book. I’ve dabbled with MySpace, Facebook and others, but I’ve never forged any useful or interesting personal or professional relationships there. Outside of work, one of my biggest interests is multiple sclerosis (as I’ve had MS since I was 19). I would probably join a social network of people for MS were it not for the fact that I’ve run Britain’s largest since 1994. Some of my friends use social networks as a way of keeping up to date, yet I still find that my existing sources of news keep me ahead of my socially networked chums. Until social networks provide me with real added value above “getting out there and mingling with real people”, I can’t imagine using one every day.
Julie Howell is director of accessibility at Fortune Cookie, a UK-based web design agency
B3ta guy
Rob Manuel
B3ta
Facebook FTW! It’s obviously completely useless, but utterly compelling. I’m addicted. However, I’ve added so many “friends”, I feel the need for a tiered friend system: 1) People I like and know, 2) Professionals who’ve added me and I’ve only met them once, but I can’t really say fuck off as they’re quite important in their sphere (including the MD of Time Out, with whom I once spent a drunken hour telling him his magazine was crap, and he now oddly wants to be my facebook friend), 3) A+ web geeks who I figure might be useful to be in touch with, but really I have no need, 4) People I’ve added for ego trip reasons. Hello Charlie Brooker, who hasn’t actually added me as a friend yet, and I’ll be spitting blood if he doesn’t as I once worked in the same office for a few months, and that surely means best friends forever, 5) People from B3ta who I like well enough but hardly ever see, 6) People from B3ta who irritate me mildly and hardly ever see, 7) Friend of my wife who’ve added me coz they’ve found Lucy’s profile (huzzah, I’m now friends with all the gay TV producers in London), 8) B3tans who I neither know nor care who they are, but I have to add them as I don’t want them posting on B3ta that I’m snooty, 9) People I assume are B3tans, Christ knows really, 10) An old school friend’s little brother. Er … Yep. Yep. It’s all pointless. But it is fun, and I reckon that’s a good enough reason. Computer games are pointless and fun, too.
Rob is co-founder of B3ta, a website that "celebrates the best stuff on the internet"
Internet researcher
Alex Burmaster
Nielsen//NetRatings
A big part of my job entails analysing what’s happening online, and a big part of this recently has been spent looking at social networks. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), I don’t actually use any of them. I find it slightly disturbing how easy it is to find out all sorts of information, personal or otherwise, about people from these sites and their friends. The only one I use, more because of push than pull it has to be said, is LinkedIn for business purposes. It gives just enough relevant information about people’s job expertise, so you know to contact them if need be.
Alex is European internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in internet media and market research
Activist
Oxblood Ruffin
Hacktivismo
Social networking, like Web 2.0, is a great big marketing wank. Social networks have had quite a few names over the years. “Affinity groups” is one term that comes to mind. That terminology isn’t so offensive. It didn’t, at least as far as I can tell, try to suck users into participating in a marketing plan. The best social networks are common interest listservs or boutique wikis. The last thing I would do would be to hang out on MySpace hoping to make a new friend. OK, maybe I’d try to promote something on MySpace to make a buck, but I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking that it wasn’t just another advertising medium. Social networks are the new AdWords, or maybe they’re just the new grey. It’s so hard keeping up.
Oxblood Ruffin is the founder of Hacktivismo, and is an active campaigner against web censorship
Research expert
Lesley Gavin
BT Group plc
Research has shown that our communication patterns are more or less set by the time we reach our late twenties. After that, it takes a bit longer for us to adapt to new tools or devices. As a result of my communication patterns having been set a decade or so ago, I find myself attracted to sites such as Friends Reunited that help me meet people I already know but have lost touch with, or sites such as LinkedIn or Xing, that help me keep in touch with my evermore mobile and globally dispersed business colleagues. Not so for the younger generation.
Young people are much more adept at making and retaining electronic friends. They have a vastly increased number of acquaintances who are tolerant of the sometimes sustained, but often brief and sporadic communications, so the sheer volume of people they know can be maintained. Interest-based networks such as Facebook and MySpace are going to merge with 3D environments such as Second Life. These environments are becoming increasingly media-rich, and will no doubt soon offer fully immersive experiences with mobile access.
The next stage, of course, is the creation of artificial life personas. These young people will grow up, have more responsible jobs and have families. They won’t have the time to keep all the conversations going. They will create AIs or “Bots” just to fill in for them when they’re busy. And so the networks expand ...
Lesley works for British Telecom in the Chief Technology Office, in Research and Venturing
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Comments
Simon Bennett / 20/08/2007 / 18:22 / http://noloafing.co.uk
Thanks this helps me and my Blog.
