Monday, July 20, 2009
Social Networks
For the last month or so, I have been participating in a web-based social network. It is an interesting experience, and has both positives and negatives. There seem to be at least three classes of networks within the overall network depending on the closeness of the persons that are linking. There are the friends that truly are friends, and this provides a means to easily keep in touch, and even better, to easily share photos. Then there are the linkages to acquaintances--people one knows but are not really close to, and finally there are linkages to people who are friends of friends. One may never have met them but is reluctant to refuse the invitation, because they are a friend of a friend.
The levels of participation are highly varied. Some people are members and never post anything. Some people post all the time and comment on everything, like a version of "Twitter". In between there are all ranges of participation. The site is structured so that by default one will see everything ones friends post and any associated comment threads to it. Reciprocally, all ones own posts are broadcast to all friends. As one of my real friends put it, "...where we will tell everyone your business."
In addition to posts, there are a number of applications or games that involve interactions. For the most part they are motivated by "feel-good" things, Karma, Friendship, friendly competition, or quizzes that ask who or what kind of a thing one is most like. Those are rather like rabbits, they multiply continuously as people create their own parochial games. The last time I looked there were over 180,000. Then there are other games of friendly competition. None of them are particularly challenging, and their purpose is to promote interaction.
The upside to these sites is that one can easily keep track of ones friends in a casual way. The downside would be if it became a substitute for genuine, serious interaction. There is also the illusion fostered by a large friends list that one has a lot of friends. This would be true only in the least restrictive of definitions of friendship--rather like high school popularity.
Since the membership in the network is free, something has to pay for it. That is the advertising one sees on the side of the page. Pay attention to it and one can see that it is selected to appeal to something said either in interactions with friends or in ones profile. In fact it is the playing of the games that creates access to information for targeting advertising. One is told up front that to play the game will require access to the profile information.
So far, the appeal is that one has control on who sees what information about oneself. That could change in the future, or rather, the default will be open rather than restrictive as it is now, and one will have to explicitly restrict information.
Overall, I think they are positive thing. One simply has to be aware of the disadvantages as well as the benefits. One final thought: it is very easy to get sucked into a lot of time spent in the network. However, it is probably better time than that spent watching TV.
The levels of participation are highly varied. Some people are members and never post anything. Some people post all the time and comment on everything, like a version of "Twitter". In between there are all ranges of participation. The site is structured so that by default one will see everything ones friends post and any associated comment threads to it. Reciprocally, all ones own posts are broadcast to all friends. As one of my real friends put it, "...where we will tell everyone your business."
In addition to posts, there are a number of applications or games that involve interactions. For the most part they are motivated by "feel-good" things, Karma, Friendship, friendly competition, or quizzes that ask who or what kind of a thing one is most like. Those are rather like rabbits, they multiply continuously as people create their own parochial games. The last time I looked there were over 180,000. Then there are other games of friendly competition. None of them are particularly challenging, and their purpose is to promote interaction.
The upside to these sites is that one can easily keep track of ones friends in a casual way. The downside would be if it became a substitute for genuine, serious interaction. There is also the illusion fostered by a large friends list that one has a lot of friends. This would be true only in the least restrictive of definitions of friendship--rather like high school popularity.
Since the membership in the network is free, something has to pay for it. That is the advertising one sees on the side of the page. Pay attention to it and one can see that it is selected to appeal to something said either in interactions with friends or in ones profile. In fact it is the playing of the games that creates access to information for targeting advertising. One is told up front that to play the game will require access to the profile information.
So far, the appeal is that one has control on who sees what information about oneself. That could change in the future, or rather, the default will be open rather than restrictive as it is now, and one will have to explicitly restrict information.
Overall, I think they are positive thing. One simply has to be aware of the disadvantages as well as the benefits. One final thought: it is very easy to get sucked into a lot of time spent in the network. However, it is probably better time than that spent watching TV.
// posted by Bill @ 11:34 AM 
