And/or Social networking webs in general. If you look over to the right, you'll see a horrible picture of me. That's purposeful. First if I don't know you, I really probably don't want to talk to you on the street and this makes that less likely to happen. Second, I'm not what one might refer to as photogenic, so it is a bit of the "best of a bad lot" as they say.
I blog because I have a need to put stuff down. It's a live journal; that's how I approach my presence on the 'tubes. It is a bit of marketing, though I haven't made mention of Galactic Empire in a while, and eventually it will be a meeting place for fans of Castle Games.
I'm not going on face book. And I don't have a widget for you. I've "browsed" one of the social sites once (looking for a friend of a friend's record shop). As a search/info tool it was useless. Oh don't get me wrong, if I wanted to endlessly click through interlinked pages of pictures of people I have no connection with and read their muddy comments, I would be set.
It seems to me that blogging is about me. Me centric, let us say. That fuels me and I suppose at a core level I'm at least partially a narcissist. It seems to me that social pages are about who I "know". Except I don't know them, I've simple been allowed to "install" their widgets. I think it may be the most modern example of the office cocktail party. You know the one where every body walks around mentioning how they met Mr. Guy, who's on TV or Mr. Politics, who voted against that thing, or Ms. Hottie from accounting.
Maybe the duality is a deep - shallow comparison. Blogging is deep, requires my effort. Often an effort I'm not up to. Face book requires me to ask people for their pictures. And then I can procalim I know them. And then I'm, like, cool.
2 comments:
I believe Facebook is more for the post 1995 graduate-age. Before that, we had Classmates. Or at least for the age group between 1985 grads to 1995 grads.
It does seem to be a generational thing.
David
Ahhhh yes... Facebook. I loved Facebook. Key word there is loved, and for a short time I might add. I, being of the "facebook generation" as David described, like the idea of a social networking application. The idea is great but in actual practice the application, facebook in this case, is not at all really used what it should be used for.
When I first logged into facebook I thought it was really cool. I was able find all my old friends that I haven't talked to in ages within minutes. It quickly dawned on me that if I really wanted to talk to them I could have found out their contact information easy enough with a little more effort. So after the initial wow factor of facebook it has now worn off. I did gain one thing though, I can contact people that I dont really want to contact. Wonderful isn't it?
Oh there may be other things you can use facebook for. I had once tried to sell JP on the whole social networking aspect of facebook which failed miserably. I tried to explain to him how you could create events in facebook and invite all your friends. You could keep them posted on all the events details and even tell them if something changed. As I was explaining all this to him it quickly became apparent that facebook was just a glorified outlook contact list. Wonderful isn't it?
Another use for facebook is it's photo album capabilities. WOOO I can have people I barely know look at me on the web whenever they want and keep tabs on me. This facebook application is sounding more and more like a social stalking application. If I wanted you to see pictures of me I would show you pictures of me!! Wonderful isn't it?
Oh wait.. one more complaint about facebook... widgits!!! who CARES that you are a vampire, or a pirate, or whatever else you can become in facebook land. Oh and just because you have some lame widget installed on your facebook page doesn't mean I want it on my page so STOP sending me requests to add this crap to my page. Wonderful isn't it?
Whoa.. getting a little worked up there. I'd better stop.
Good post JP. Keep up the good work!
Wayne
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