Do you really make that many friends through social networks? |
Jay Neely bravely tries to explain the difference between a blog and social network with one hopelessly overgeneralized sentence:
One is for your friends, the other is for your audience.
Kent has already debunked the statement:
Take connecting with old friends, for example. Very few, if any, of my real world friends even know what Facebook is. None (to my knowledge) use it. As a result, I will have a much better chance connecting with people I know by nurturing my web site and waiting for people to Google me.
There are a couple reasons I don’t use Facebook. One is I don’t care for services that start by wanting to get into your address book and bother your existing contacts. Sure, you’re giving permission, it’s not some automated activity, but it would be a rare situation that I’d contact my friends with a single group message. Ever. Would have to be something very significant in life that I feel they would care about and be interested in. Facebook, at least in its current condition, doesn’t make the cut.
I also don’t use Facebook because it has been billed and promoted as something great for college students. I realize it’s been open to others (company owners, high school students and the nondescript ‘other’ category) for awhile but somebody please tell me why would I want to get into a social network with a primary base of college students? No offense to college students, I’m sure many are great human beings and could probably teach and/or share something cool with me they’ve discovered online.
It just seems a little odd to me to be active in a social network with college students when I haven’t gone (alumni) and am not currently going to college. I mean odd like if I would attend NRA meetings not being an NRA member or even somebody that owns a firearm. That’s not saying I don’t like and agree with the Second Amendment, it’s saying that I wouldn’t be as comfortable trying to engage in that type of group.
And yes, I realize people of all ages — even far older than me — attend college universities. The reality seems to be that the median age of college students nationwide is 25. It’s not just a generation gap because I do share common interests with younger and older people, but would rather join a social networking site for programmers than a social networking site for college students.
I don’t get MySpace either, Kent. I mean, sure I get that younger people primarily are using it as sort of a quasi IM web client. Musicians seem to be the best business case use of MySpace I’ve seen in connecting with their audience and fans.
Jay tries further defining blogging later in his post:
Blogging is all about sharing your ideas, pictures, analysis, jokes, links, or even your life with anyone who wants to view it. From the best bloggers, it’s an in-depth, high-quality, frequent experience. Or at least two of the three.
Jay doesn’t quite finger the #1 reason I continue to write and update this blog regularly: exercise. There’s no way I’m the only writer out there who sees a blog as a wonderful outlet for better exploring and developing first draft material. That isn’t saying the posts being written aren’t about the things Jay cites specifically, but the reason why to continue regularly updating a blog for me and I suspect many other bloggers varies wildly. Some blog for money as the motivation. Others blog to keep their family and friends updated on what’s going on. Others do it to promote what they’re up to or as part of their job. And so on.
Kent seems to blog because he wants to explore better ways to communicate online and share common interests. He specifically mentions that he isn’t that into chatting … with strangers:
It’s the same with new friends. No one will ever accuse me of being shy, but at the same time, I’m not big on chatting online with people I don’t know.
Perhaps I’m not doing the social network thing right because I have made more friends online through face to face meetings (blogger meetups, conventions, etc), IRC, a web radio show and blogging than through all the social networks combined.
Speaking of IRC, Kent and anybody else reading that wants to hang out with me online, I keep an active nick at irc.scriptschool.com #scriptschool. Note: while most our conversation is office friendly and work safe on this channel, some is not. It is also the support channel for the site and weekly web radio show I host every Friday at 2pm PST / 10pm GMT which specifically caters to an adult webmaster audience.
Things we do in the IRC include sharing blogging links, interesting things we find, discuss current events, some programming discussion and more. There is a bot in the channel that can be fed links. It’s the kind of thing we do on our individual blogs really, only it’s broadcast to the world.
I mention this not to promote the IRC channel but because it’s the only place I hang out in a group setting regularly for any significant type of chatting online. Those who want to have that type of regular interaction with me outside of this blog can easily do so by simply showing up and hanging out. Adult webmasters, mainstream webmasters, readers, subscribers, friends, some, all or none of the above you’re welcome as long as you are at least 18 and not be disruptive or destructive to the channel and IRC server. IRC has been my Twitter and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
I thought Second Life might someday become my new online water cooler area — imagine a 3D IRC, how cool is that? — but IRC is a lot more stable and can support a lot more people. Just about everybody has an IM client that supports the established IRC protocol. It’s interesting to see Kent mention Second Life lost its appeal for him because he felt it was more about chatting with people, but I find myself telling friends in world to take our conversation to IRC where it is faster and more responsive.
Truth is the social networks seem kind of plastic to me. I don’t mind marketing, but I don’t like the idea of doing it under or around the guise of ‘friendship’. Like people adding me as a friend are just trying to get my attention for something or if I’m adding them it’s for some kind of promotional quid pro quo. I feel uncomfortable in a similar way adding people I don’t know to a “friend’s” list and yet am very extroverted. Instead what I’m doing on these social networks in most cases is adding shared interests, not friends.
With all that said and explained, I can share my writing experimentation here with others of any age, including college students, NRA members, hardcore republicans and those who share the same kinds of interests in subject matter. We can form a friendship through and/or outside this blog via the comments section, trackbacks and cross-blog discussions like Kent and others have recognized. It seems like a more organic way of building online friendships — for me, anyway — than all the social networks I’ve tried.
If I’m going to get into Facebook tell me what I’m supposed to do to find this same level of interaction — Jay or somebody else entrenched in the site — without having to do a bunch of extra legwork? How much time will it take me to find people with common interests and form similarly close relationships without feeling phony about the whole exchange?
This isn’t to say I haven’t made any friends through social networks. I’ve had the most success in the music social networks where I can simply listen to music I like and others with similar musical tastes make recommendations to me. I’ve made a few good contacts that way, found some new music and haven’t had to spend much time doing anything different.
Not trying to be anti social networking here, but how many people really make that many friends through social networks? Online contacts I can see, but how many friends? And if you’re successful at it then how do you do it? What’s your secret? Please give me the Cliff’s Notes version because like others I’m time starved.
I know Kent will see this because he has trackbacks enabled but strangely Jay doesn’t seem to (?) I took a shot at sending you a TB anyway Jay. Putting Jay’s about page to the test where he writes:
I enjoy helping others, and I have a strong belief that communicating is the most essential piece of living and succeeding in the modern world.
Hope Jay sees the link in Technorati or whatever ego tracker he uses and finds my response that way but a trackback would have been easier.
I know some think trackbacks have been ruined by spammers, but I still find them useful for notifying another party that I’ve left them a message. It’s had better results than sending an email out of the blue and if I left Jay a comment on his blog post that I linked above would he follow the conversation here or would it be deleted as spam? A trackback enables him to look at the post and determine that yes somebody is actually trying to have a conversation with him and at the same time reward his site with some SE karma.
With the social network sites it seems it’s back to old school email notifications (some have RSS notification) or having to check their social networking blog — I want to claw my eyes out after looking at most of those — where most/all the blatant advertising dollars go into the social networking site’s coffers.
If we’re talking about helping friends — and I don’t mean just names on a contact list — I’d rather do that by buying from advertising where my friends get to make money around the exchange rather than increasing the MySpace or Facebook profits.
Did this post make you go hmm?
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Let’s not leave out equally as useless social aspects like that of Icon Buffet.
Comment by Lestat — May 29, 2007 @ 8:06 am PST
Good point, Lestat
Comment by TDavid — May 29, 2007 @ 8:42 am PST
That reminds me that I need to go in there and kill all the email notifications I’m getting from that site.
Comment by TDavid — May 29, 2007 @ 8:45 am PST
Great post!
I actually signed up for Facebook last night, just to see what it looked like.
Several things stood out to me. First, one of the primary Profile questions is “I am interested in finding a (a) man, (b) woman,” or something very similar. That doesn’t give them impression of a networking site as much as a personals site. Second, one of the ways to communicate with another user is to “poke” them. Are you kidding me?
The most important thing I discovered: total number of my high school classmates and college classmates with Facebook accounts: 0. Not one.
Comment by Kent — May 29, 2007 @ 8:56 am PST
When I signed up for Facebook Kent I had to use our company name because it didn’t like TDavid
I wonder what happens to Ichiro at Facebook? Or maybe he puts in Ichiro Suzuki? How about Sting? Doesn’t Sting do Facebook?
Comment by TDavid — May 29, 2007 @ 9:18 am PST
I love me some Myspace…..for me, I find it is an easier way to keep in touch with a lot of people…and I enjoy blogging there as well.
Beyond that, I don’t read the bulletins, use the IM client, or any other stuff. I’ve started using the calendar function recently to keep track of stuff both publically shown and private that is upcoming. Since I use Myspace daily, it’s a good place for me to keep track of stuff like that.
I don’t get Second Life at all - no interest….
Comment by Matt Wardlaw — May 29, 2007 @ 9:32 am PST
Matt - thank you for the firsthand feedback. I’m curious and have a few additional questions perhaps you can answer at your convenience:
What makes MySpace easier to keep in touch with a lot of your friends? I mean, if I want to get in touch with a lot of people I type a post and press submit. In the MySpace situation I’d have to work to get contacts there, add friends, etc, right? To drive people to a third party site that some may/may not be registered for (or not use).
If we want to have a conversation here in the comments like we’re doing now we can do so and those who want to get into the conversation only need to subscribe to the RSS feed or leave a comment and get notified. There’s no need to register or setup friend’s lists or do any of that to participate in a conversation.
Also, MySpace doesn’t have trackbacks do they? How do I notify you — or vice versa — that I’ve linked to something? I have to go leave a comment on your MySpace blog? Drop you an email? You seem pretty on the ball whenever I mention your name or link to something you’ve done so you must have some sort of system.
Lastly, you mentioned the MySpace calendar function. Have you tried/compared Google calendar? You can make public events there too.
Comment by TDavid — May 29, 2007 @ 9:51 am PST
If we’re talking about helping friends — and I don’t mean just names on a contact list — I’d rather do that by buying from advertising where my friends get to make money around the exchange rather than increasing the MySpace or Facebook profits.
I find this statement so true… true enough that there is often mention of the few reaping the rewards of many… Recently during a panel “Collaboration and Collective Intelligence”, Trebor Scholz, from the Institute for Distributed Creativity, suggested that the MySpace generation has a lot to learn about working for free.
He went on to describe this simply as capitalism moved online and wondered how people ought to be compensated for their participation and contribution.
At least there are brilliant people understanding and questioning what drives social networking, rather than simply taking advantage of the profit opportunities.
Comment by weirdharold — May 29, 2007 @ 11:50 am PST
Hello TDavid! Thanks for the link, and I’m happy to continue this discussion with you, as I did with Kent. I feel like you’ve framed some of mine and Kent’s statements a bit differently than I would have chosen to, but hopefully you’ll soon understand why.
“One is for your friends, the other is for your audience.” The sentence right after, “The key difference is that one group already knows you(it’s easy to replace “friends” with “coworkers”, “family”, “neighbors”, etc)”, was a major clarification of that statement. It, and all the sentences thereafter, were in fact part of a longer explanation, which is a process of turning contextless, broad(or, “hopelessly overgeneralized”) statement into a more detailed, nuanced representation of concepts. Snark now returned, let’s move on to a less patronizing discussion.
I would disagree that Kent “debunked” my post, or even my statement. Kent’s quote makes two points:
1) His friends don’t know what Facebook is.
2) He feels he has a better chance of connecting with friends by “waiting for people to Google” him.
In response to #1, I posted in Kent’s comments: “[…]Part of it is a generational thing. Looking at your About page, you talk about writing software in the 80s, so I’m guessing you’re at least in your late 30s right now. Let’s keep this between the two of us(and your comment readers)[and now you TDavid, and your comment readers… *sigh*], but I’m about to turn 21. For my generation, social networking sites are already known as the place to go to reconnect. And I bet you’d be surprised how many more people you used to know that you could find on Reunion.com than through a Google search.[…]”
In response to #2, my post was about how tools are used, proactively. If you want to sit back and let people find you when they want you to, you’re not really trying to reconnect with them, are you? If you were, you would find them and call them, write them, or e-mail them. You’re doing your own thing, writing, for whatever reasons you like, and it happens that that’s a great way to get a lot of Google-juice and be better found by people searching for you.
Your reasons for not using Facebook are all perfectly valid personal preferences/peeves. And I think you, Kent, and I have all agreed on how much we dislike MySpace.
Your next quote from my post is part of a specific comparison between the general feel of blogging vs social networking.
“Blogging is all about sharing your ideas, pictures, analysis, jokes, links, or even your life with anyone who wants to view it. From the best bloggers, it’s an in-depth, high-quality, frequent experience.” vs. “Social networking, on the other hand, is all about connecting with people you know or want to get to know. It’s a casual, no-pressure, as-you-can experience.”
Of course, YMMV. The personal reasons anyone does anything have infinite variations. But I think that our use of tools are not only affected by the format of the tools themselves(like Twitter’s character limit), but by the way others are using them. You mention that you write on your blog for exercise. But clearly while doing that you’re writing for an audience as well. Because if not, why have it on a public blog at all? Why have comments? Why use Trackbacks?
“Truth is the social networks seem kind of plastic to me. I don’t mind marketing, but I don’t like the idea of doing it under or around the guise of ‘friendship’. Like people adding me as a friend are just trying to get my attention for something or if I’m adding them it’s for some kind of promotional quid pro quo. I feel uncomfortable in a similar way adding people I don’t know to a “friend’s” list and yet am very extroverted. Instead what I’m doing on these social networks in most cases is adding shared interests, not friends.”
I’m very much in agreement with you on this. And I think it’s important to remember that social networks are still relatively new tools, and users are still figuring out how they want to use them. People may add more “friends” than are actually friends, but they don’t interact with them. Social networks continue to be used primarily to interact with people you know or want to know. I wrote elsewhere that while Facebook’s navigation design put the emphasis on people first, there are plenty of social networks like Tribe.net that put the emphasis on interests first. Social networks are just a tool. It’s about how you use them.
Sorry I don’t yet have Trackbacks, I’m using Textpattern, which doesn’t include them by default for the spamming reasons you mentioned above. I believe there’s a plug-in that adds it on, and I’m in the process of adding that and a few other features I’d like to have. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to drop by your IRC channel and get some advice from you on that, and hear some more of your thoughts on blogging, writing, life.
Best,
Comment by Jay Neely — May 29, 2007 @ 1:37 pm PST
Hi Jay - I have three teenagers, one of which isn’t that far from your age
(eeks, I’m feeling older by the second!)
I get that this works for you and your friends. The popularity of sites like MySpace and Facebook show that but again I call to the primary demographics.
You wrote:
I wasn’t aware reconnecting was such an important goal of these sites? I thought they were about connecting your existing network and finding and making new friends.
I’m happily married and don’t want or need to find a date this weekend. I get reunion.com and classmates.com garbage by email all the time. I know where to find people I went to school with if/when that’s a goal of mine, so what else should I spend my time on these services trying to do if it’s not reconnection with people?
And if it is primarily about searching for people, I could make a compelling argument that the social networking sites aren’t the most efficient way to do that. There are several different targeted people search engines out there.
I couldn’t disagree with this statement more:
Perhaps for some that is easy to do, but for me it’s the opposite. A friend to me is not the same as family member or co-worker or neighbor. I don’t use the friends description that casually. I might have a co-worker or client that are considered friends but I have many others that I would classify as a people I know or have met in person, not friends. Being friendly to somebody is not the same as being their friend.
As for this comment:
The reason to have my writing exercises on a public blog is to share the draft material so that others who typically couldn’t see can participate in the creative process. I’ve been very consistent for my reasons for maintaining and updating this particular blog for years. I contribute to other blogs for different reasons but this one is an exercise area. Brain exercise, writing exercise, sometimes intellectual exercise.
I don’t consider myself a ‘blogger’ here although that’s an appropriate label others might use. I consider myself a writer. Writers write. Whether it be on paper, in a computer, on a cocktail napkin, in a blog, whatever. We work on text like a mechanic works on cars or a massage therapist works on an sore joint. We experiment with different ways to pass along stories and dreams and fantasies. We love the language and it’s often a compulsion that needs release regularly. We have to do it. It’s not a matter of wanting to or not. Fortunately many writers, myself included, love to write so it’s not a big deal to sharpen the stone.
So I’m not writing here for an audience when I sit down to create a post, I’m writing to get something that moved me one way or another out of my system. I edit for an audience and interact with readers who leave comments after the post has been published. Newer readers unfamiliar with the prior body of work might not understand the backstory, so with my editor’s hat I’ll change/add words, links and other supporting information to add better clarity in each piece before it’s published. It’s amazing what a wealth of information lies in the archives of blogs and sadly the site search is one of the weakest areas at most blogs. Don’t even get me started on social network site search engines.
There is a big difference between writing and editing. Some writers are lousy editors and some editors are lousy writers and some are lousy at both. A lousy editor can sap the emotion out of a good piece and a lousy writer never sparks any emotion to begin with.
Editors and publishers are there for audience, I’ll give you that, Jay. I’m not going into the post writing process thinking like a publisher or editor (that muddies the waters), I’m writing about something that needed to be released. My primary care and concern is in the material and the secondary issue is who is going to read and react to it.
After a post is published the needs and focus of the piece can change, sometimes dramatically. I become more about editor and publisher than author at that point. Now I’m focused on seeing what the post means to other people or if I was just out there on some island. Search engines can bring answers right away or takes months (even years in rare cases) to fully realize how the material is judged by others.
I enjoy receiving and giving comments and feedback — good, bad or indifferent — although my favorite comments tend to be the more critical ones. Not just senseless bashing or troll material (those I discount), but comments that really causes me to rethink the way the material was originally presented. These can help to shape future drafts and posts which are more fully evolved. Those that tend to have visceral responses experienced the text on a level similar to what it was when it was written.
Just this morning I saw a new site called JamJunky that allows people to participate in the creative process of writing music. The artist uploads perhaps a few chords or rough verses and others participate. The artist in that case is letting people see and possibly even participate in a very intimate part of the creative process.
Comment by TDavid — May 29, 2007 @ 3:42 pm PST
TDavid,
I think Jay made a good point, as I slacked on responding to this stuff. I agree with him that social networking places are indeed the place to reconnect.
I first set up my Myspace page for my radio show that I was doing in Cleveland, which you are familiar with. The Myspace page was great for networking with various local and national bands, and also communicating with various friends of mine that are on Myspace. Much like you, I was in a 10 year relationship, and not looking for a date for the weekend, so that part of it was of no interest to me.
Now, with the local demise of the radio show, and almost simultaneous death of my relationship, I reworked my Myspace page to be more of a personal page reflecting my own interests and thoughts, and also increased the amount of blogging that I do on the page.
You know where to find the people that you went to school with, but for me at least, I haven’t been the best at keeping track of or in touch with many of those people. With that in mind, I enjoy using Myspace to track down some of those people. It’s a good starting point at least. I’d be curious to know some other good people search alternatives (which you alluded to) that I should check out.
Now, to address your questions: You are correct, in the Myspace situation, you would have to work to get contacts, add friends, etc – but I think you would be surprised how many people are on Myspace that you would know. Myspace is one of those things that you can’t really escape hearing about, so I would guess that a good number of people have signed up to at least check it out, and I would also guess that a good number of those same people are actually using it still.
With the amount of my friends that are already on Myspace, I’ve been able to build a virtual online address book of the various people that I talk to and think about everyday, and sending them a message is as easy as logging on to Myspace, clicking on their picture in my top 24 friends, send message, done. Those top 24 friends are pretty much strategically arranged as the top 24 people that I come into contact with the most, so that I can see their picture, remember that I wanted to message them about something, send message, done! I use my blog for the same purpose that you post – when I have a thought that I want to share with many…I blog about it.
As far as conversing in the comments like we are doing here – I think that you can basically do the same thing on Myspace either in the general comments section on each user’s page, or in the comments section of an individual blog entry.
You’re right, Myspace doesn’t have trackbacks. Not that I am aware of. It’s the one thing that I really wish Myspace did have. I’m “on the ball” when you mention my name or link, only because I am addicted to Hmm. I have a problem, I’ve admitted it, and I think I’ll be okay No system really, other then me surfing Hmm on a regular basis – I see my name, link, etc, and I comment!
I am aware of the Google Calendar – I only really use the Myspace calendar function at this point, because Myspace is something I use on a daily basis…..I don’t really need one more stop on my daily computing travels….
Hopefully that answers some of your questions, and helps a bit?
Always love readin’ your stuff!
Matt
Comment by Matt Wardlaw — May 30, 2007 @ 8:00 am PST