I have to admit that I’m semi-clueless about Facebook, LinkedIn, and even EMSConnect. I guess they are ways to use the miracle of the Internet to track and stay in touch with old friends, college buddies, co-workers, just about anyone else that you don’t want to lose touch with. A “good old boy” network for the 21st Century, as it were.
But, what do you DO with these sites? I know this makes me hopelessly old fashioned, but I’m just not getting the concept. On Facebook, I can see what my friends are doing and what groups they belong to. I can add friends, and join their groups, but since they are already my friends, I’m in touch with them anyway. I guess it’s a way to meet new people with similar interests to mine. Still it seems a little weird, even creepy, to me. I guess that maybe I’m just a private sort of person. As private as one can be in the Internet Age. Which really isn’t very.
I guess if I had a product or service to sell, I’d find more utility in this sort of thing. Still, I’m going to play around with it, add a bunch of people as friends, and see what happens.
If that doesn’t work, I have an alternate plan. Antisocial Networks. Maybe that’s more my speed. I just looked and “Getouttamyfacebook.com” seems to be taken. Although no one seems to have done anything with it yet. NotLinkedIn is parked as well. I guess I’m not the only person who has the idea of anti social networking. Maybe there’s a constituency out there. The problem being that if it’s an anti social networking website, I can’t let anyone join. Or as Groucho Marx once said, “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
So, if you have any experience with these website/networks, feel free to chime in. Maybe the feeling that I’m missing the next big thing is justified, maybe it isn’t. Time, as it usually does, will tell.
inyourface.com is gone, as is notyourspace.com. But that one expires on Jan 22nd.. You can snipe it if you’re quick. More to your suit, myassyourface.com is registered but for sale.
Myassyourface.com just seems so you, Mule Breath! 🙂
All I do is blog… no myspace, facebook or social dating sites for me. I’ve built up a circle of online friends just by blogging… I’m with you on the “what do I do with it?” Never did see the fascination in it as others do. There are just too many other ways to communicate with friends. Happy Holidays!A.
So far in my day long exploration I have to agree with you. Just about everyone that I’ve connected with as friends is someone that I’m in pretty frequent contact with anyway. Oh well, we’ll see what happens. Happy Holidays to you too.
Hello TOTWTYTR,One thing you and I have in common with each other but not with more and more (young) Internet users is a more substantive (they would say narrower) definition of “friend”. What many of them call friends, you and I may call nodding acquaintances.When you add in Geek Social Fallacies #1 and #4, you can understand not only the growth of social sites – and I’m a Facebook and MySpace user myself – but also many users’ bloated friend lists. I’ve seen more than one profile “batting 1,000”!Happy Holidays!Jeff Deutsch
Jeff, you’re probably right. I have a lot of acquaintances, but only a few friends. Defined as people I can call anytime, anywhere, I’m in trouble and they will be there for me. There are others who are friendly acquaintances, but for any number of reasons I wouldn’t expect them to help me out if I were in serious trouble.
Here is a bit of information about the Groucho Marx quote (resigning from the Friar’s Club). “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.” It seems that he would have a similar opinion of these social thingies.I view it as somewhat similar to text messaging, but less useful. Text messaging is a great way to communicate with someone in situations where a phone call will not be appropriate, such as during work, during school, when they might be sleeping, or when you are wandering in and out of a poor cellular signal area.Social networking sites seem to be the internet form of dancing. Look at me. See what I’m doing.Some people dance well and it is a treat to watch them dance (not just women disrobing). Others tend more toward a DSM IV classification. The same might be said of blogging. Oh, well.I am also very absent minded. I would probably insult several people by not including them in some of these public demonstrations of interconnectedness. I do not need the complications, the drama, or more perceived obligations. 🙂
I joined MySpace and Facebook, but don’t really use them. However, I did get in touch with friends from middle and high school who I hadn’t seen in years through those sites. Some of them even live near me. So, in that respect, if you’re young and foolish enough to wish to re-find friends who you lost touch with from earlier in your life (clearly, I am that young and foolish), then facebook or myspace is cool. On the other hand, I am annoyed by the constant barrage of ‘so-an-so’s doing X’ and Join my group Y crap I get on both of those, so I do check infrequently. I just don’t get the need to constantly tell people what you are doing every minute of the day.
Uhhh…If you were on Facebook you could find out what the “G” stands for…And I could send you a way-cool e-vite to the Blogger meet on Saturday.That you’re already attending.But it would be an e-vite! SRSLY! Teh kewl!I dunno. I just do what all the pretty girls tell me to do. Figure that can’t go wrong, right?
I am on Facebook, but under my nomme de real, not my blog name. I know what the G stands for, I just can’t remember it. :)Depending on who the pretty girls are, you can get in a lot of trouble by listening to them. Sometimes it’s good trouble, mostly it’s not.
I had a myspace once. But that was to keep up with my then teenage kid. Boy were his friends naive inviting me to be their friends. Ha! I had the low down on a lot of stuff.
My daughter had a MySpace page, as did my son. My daughter made her’s private several weeks after my wife found the page and started cyberstalking her. I don’t know if my wife has a Facebook or any other social networking page. I’m afraid to find out.
TOTWTYTR, I’m with you. I have no idea what to do with my Facebook page. I figure out how to blog, though.I’m with you on the pretty girl thing, though.
Well, I suppose we could start a Northeast Bloggers group. I nominate JayG for President. 🙂
I joined facebook to play games… they’re addicting! But I don’t really use it for the social stuff.Sorry for the late comment, I just discovered your blog today 🙂
It seems like a lot of people play the games on Facebook, but so far I’ve resisted the temptation. Welcome to the blog, I hope you visit often.