Recently I found myself playing a few online games and noticed the API add-in for links to Facebook and Twitter. The concept was pretty basic, attach your login to Facebook to the game to instantly post game achievements to Facebook or Twitter. However this left me pondering the true scope of social networking.
Today, a friend asked me to help him with some basic information and setup on a social network. Without hesitation I began asking questions about needs and deterring from one network in favor of another, and listing a few pros and cons. That’s when it really hit me, social networking is no longer just some toy or fad. I’ve been reading a lot of articles surrounding social networks, the impacts they have, and the media attention some of the bigger name networks command. But it takes something like realizing you are somewhat of a pro when it comes to social network knowledge to really put it into perceptive.
Unlike a few others I know, I didn’t start my first profile until Myspace hit the market. I remember contemplating even joining, summing up the concept of a social network as nothing more than a waste of time and a pointless endeavor, but I joined it anyway realizing I truly didn’t have anything better to waste my time on (I was at work – graves). I began tweaking settings, adding and removing information, connecting with old and new friends and spending hours collecting information. For what? Well, at the time it was merely amusing. I was also getting into web development as a hobby and noticed that I could modify much of my Myspace profile with CSS. This led me to Photobucket and eventually Flickr, because I had to host my photo’s for my background somewhere.
Later came facebook, and facebook apps. Those wonderfully addicting games stole much of my time. I constantly see ads for Farmville, a popular facebook game. I still have my cell phone linked to facebook to get updates and comments directly texted to me wherever I go, with the ability to text in a reponse. Though I don’t use this feature as often as I once did.
Speaking of texting, next huge blocked buster was Twitter. Twitter has become so hugely popular and media effecting that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to reschedule it’s downtime last summer due to elections in Iran. President Obama sent his first “tweet” this year while pushing for relief funds for an earthquake in Haiti. Google has started displaying real-time twitter feeds in their search to help keep a constant, fresh, opinion on any matter you might be wanting to track, from politics to apple events.
Back to my original statement of connecting my game with facebook. I've been starting to see the “connect with facebook” everywhere now, from games to Digg. Usually associated is also Twitter, both performing ways to link your profile for a given site with your accounts on neither or both facebook and twitter.
Google Profiles, has recently launched and allows a user to connect facebook, along with many other social networks in order to use google to quickly search topics in the news and among friends and family. A truly scary and remarkable way social networks are influencing our internet and business experience daily. Jaron Lanier, recently published a book about how our lives are quickly becoming a blip in the net, and we’re becoming a collective hive. A very interesting, if not extreme theory. However with the advent and general push of social networks, that seems to be bringing the internet around to a very real, almost tangible feeling. Being able to not only put a face to an online persona, but also the ability to read about this person in many forms, from a simple facebook profile and friends listings to credit card purchases. I almost seems if we may be giving up TOO much of our personal information and connecting far too many of our daily habits to internet searchable media.
In a very sick and devilish way I’m almost looking forward to watching how the effect of social networks completely alter how the internet functions as the dynamic of reality and the virtual world collide into one giant mess.
What’s your take? Do you actively engage in social networks? How do they effect you and do you see them as nothing more than a novelty, or a change of times?
2 comments:
I think that social networking will go through ups and downs. For example, Myspace will be gone soon. In my opinion Myspace is turning into Tagged. Kind of a dirty cheap way to spam the hell out of your friends and play some apps. I was one of the first to get a myspace page and I used the hell out of it when I first got it. Now I barely log in. Twitter to me is a damn joke. I dont care what youre doing every minute of everyday!!! Facebook I feel is a safe bet. You cant mess up your profile with music and stupid backgrounds and so it doesnt bog down everytime someone wants to see your page. So like I said I think Social Networking will go through ups and downs and as of right now it seems like it is on an up.
The integration of it all is very compelling. I would tend to agree with you on the twitter aspect, however I know lots of businesses and non-profit organizations use twitter to keep customers/clients/affiliates up-to-date on information. I can see it as being a very good thing, as did the government during the Iran elections.
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