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one more ranty bit, then I have to go and do some work
Social Networking.
I received an Orkut invite yesterday from someone I didn't recognise but who I've apparently had technical dealings with in the past. Aside from the much-ranted-about privacy issues, and the friend-or-not issue that seems to cause so many allegedly antisocial geeks such heartrending difficulty, my biggest problem with any of the social networking toys I've looked at to date is the question of what the hell it gives me. Maybe I'm unique in not being particularly enamoured with the notion of belonging to a web of people the bulk of whom I don't actually know, but so far I've seen nothing compelling about these systems. LiveJournal provides a way of keeping in touch with people I know from UseNet, without the spam and noise that makes UseNet unusable, so there's an instant win for LiveJournal from my POV. But beyond that, I've already got email and a multi-protocol instant messenger for keeping in touch with people, and I really can't see how filling out yet another demographic form and writing quirky yet insightful things about myself gets me anything over and above what's presented to people who accidentally hit my website while googling for, say, hash brownies or bike tricks (the two most common search referrers on my site) and start looking around.
I received an Orkut invite yesterday from someone I didn't recognise but who I've apparently had technical dealings with in the past. Aside from the much-ranted-about privacy issues, and the friend-or-not issue that seems to cause so many allegedly antisocial geeks such heartrending difficulty, my biggest problem with any of the social networking toys I've looked at to date is the question of what the hell it gives me. Maybe I'm unique in not being particularly enamoured with the notion of belonging to a web of people the bulk of whom I don't actually know, but so far I've seen nothing compelling about these systems. LiveJournal provides a way of keeping in touch with people I know from UseNet, without the spam and noise that makes UseNet unusable, so there's an instant win for LiveJournal from my POV. But beyond that, I've already got email and a multi-protocol instant messenger for keeping in touch with people, and I really can't see how filling out yet another demographic form and writing quirky yet insightful things about myself gets me anything over and above what's presented to people who accidentally hit my website while googling for, say, hash brownies or bike tricks (the two most common search referrers on my site) and start looking around.