Tuesday, September 7. 2004

Today on my way to work I was catching up a bit on my news and read Sterling's entry sharing his thoughts on social networking. I think he over did it a bit on his analysis, but he is dead on to question the real feasibility of the concept.

I've been listening and reading about social networks for awhile now but I still don't see how or why I really care. As it stands now Orkut is pretty much a B.S. Popularity contest which generates fairly little utility for me. In fact, the only time its been useful at all is when I wanted to contact someone who I knew was friends with so and so.... But that really isn't social networking is it? Seems like a fancy contact list to me..

My point here is that the current social networking tools are features attempting to be products. I don't care what my social network looks like, and I don't want e-mail from some friend of a friend whom I've never ever heard of before. Maybe that is naive of me, but I just don't think you can abstract people and relationships out of the equation to the point where I'll accept an e-mail from someone I've never met and put anywhere near the same weight on that e-mail had I at least had a beer with them before. Nor do I think having to maintain some sort of profile where you can find what movies I like to watch interesting either. Honestly do you either?

Despite my problems with the modern technology behind what we call "social networks", I think in the future the real power of technology in our social environment will show itself as our cell phones abilities increase. If every cell phone had a GPS when I am wandering around NYC I could see My friend Kip was at the bar just down the street having a beer with Adam and stop by. *Now, that's useful.* I don't think social Networks will ever be a tool to meet new people effectively, but I am sure they will be great for nuturing existing relationships into something more substaintial.