Facebook OK face to face Better
Although the Author is credited as William, I'm Davy Sims blog sitting for a couple of days.
As William says, I鈥檝e joined as have just many of my 鈥渞eal life鈥 work friends. This social navigation thing has interested me from the earliest days 鈥 even in the clunky versions a decade ago. But in real life I don鈥檛 tend to join things and it鈥檚 much the same on the Web.
Like many others I tried in its early version and deleted myself before long. success is a mystery to me. I鈥檝e tried it 鈥 but between being totally geographically (if that鈥檚 the right word) lost and with the time lag (nano-seconds are important on line), I dropped it too. And making up that avatar 鈥 enough.
account is still active 鈥 but I never use it. is OK but I ended up talking to myself. I was talking to one of the (many) 成人论坛 people who are not on Facebook who says he鈥檇 prefer an anti-social network.
Yet Facebook seems to work for me. It鈥檚 a bit more fun I suppose, and with 鈥渞eal鈥 friends there it鈥檚 more interesting. I鈥檝e even got into non-online (i.e. face to face) conversations with people about their lives which probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't read those one liners people publish about going for a walk or going shopping.
But what has recently emerged is fascinating. One person who found my profile invited me to become a friend is also friends with two utterly unrelated people. The three of them just happen to work in new media/web. But it turns out that my new friend (who I鈥檝e never met) used to phone in to a radio programme I presented more than 20 years ago.
I think the key here is real people with real names who know each other in real life. But different people like different things. For some, anonymity is more fun and allows more scope for making connections. And connections is what it鈥檚 all about.
Where social networking sites really get it right is treating the internet for what is 鈥 a sharing, multi-way platform. Where broadcasters often get it wrong is thinking about the internet as one way outward push and distribution mechanism. And as I say to broadcasters who are just beginning to use the internet 鈥渞emember it鈥檚 a conversation鈥.
And with that, I welcome your comments and please add me as a friend on Facebook.
Comments
Hi Davy. One social networking site that appears to be getting hugely popular in NI is . Myspace seems to be the American teenager's site of choice with Facebook used more by adults. I have some friends on too, but it doesn't seem to be as big a thing.
I have tried a number of social networking sites, but my favorite is Flickr.That's a photo sharing social network (for anoraks with a camera).There is an active Belfast group. We we had a local meeting recently and more are planned.(https://www.flickr.com/groups/belfast/ )
I know of no one outside of Northern Ireland who uses Bebo, it seems to be disproportionately popular among young people in this 'wee country' of ours. I have a myspace account, which I rarely use, and have just set up a Facebook account.
Davy
Poots is pots here!
Although the pits might have been even better!
/northernireland/radioulster/sunday_sequence/
Bebo is remarkably popular in Northern Ireland. I have two sons - one in school where Bebo is the common platform, the other uses My Space to distribute music from his band and to keep in contact with friends.
I have been told - but I don't know if it's true - there are more than 3 million My Space users in RoI. How does that work out as a percentage of the population? (Although the .ie My Space URL is owned by a paints company!)
No one is quite sure why Orcut took off in Spanish speaking countries. But as I always say, put technology into the public's hands and they'll do what they want, not what the designer wants. And so it should be.
Alan - I'll leave William to take up your point. Thanks for posting.
I'm on bebo, my space, Flickr and facebook. But I think Facebook is the best - it can be updated via rss from your other online identities / blogs etc.
It does seem to be more suited to older users. My space is best for bands, bebo seems to be mostly populated by teenagers, but as a serious networking site Facebook seems to be winning the race.