Are we having fun yet, now that we have our Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Blogger, WordPress, Spotify, Skype and Google accounts, to mention but a few?
Certainly, some may find it all rewarding, in some peculiar way, but you have to admit that some of the above mentioned services are downright intrusive. At least I feel that to be the case with Facebook – and yet I’ve kept my once accidentally opened account. A couple of years ago I needed access to a Facebook group while researching a story I wrote, which required registration.
Before long friend requests started pouring in, so I thought I’d have a go at it. Bummer. And then there were the applications needed to make use of various invitations, which I ignore, as a general rule. If you ever sent me one, please understand that it isn’t personal. I just don’t accept applications. Apart from that, catching up on what old friends are up to these days, and receiving reminders of their birthdays and such, is what I like about it, but I don’t care much for chatting, and I don’t like to see who’s logged on. It’s just not my business.
And along came Twitter. So much less intrusive, but you have to keep up in order to find it useful. The good thing is, though, that it’s all based on exchanging thoughts, news and links. You don’t have to declare friendship, but you’re required to “follow”:
There’s a part two, too, if you’re not too exhausted:
I registered about a year ago, and soon came to prefer Twitter over Facebook – big time. It wasn’t as if I inhabited the place, though, which should become obvious if you visit my profile.
For news buffs, such as myself, Twitter’s been known to break news before the media, on several occasions, such as the fairly recent Hudson river emergency landing. Tweeters have been liveblogging from conferences and events, too, so all in all: Thumbs up for Twitter.
By the way, did I mention that I do love YouTube? A quick look at the post gives an idea. Summing up the Twitter section:
But there’s more to video than YouTube, even if it undoubtedly is the dominating and by far the most vast, in terms of content, player on the arena. A number of services have since emerged, such as
In a social media context, the latter two are extremely interesting, but really, there’s no end to this. Needless to say, there are numerous porn-specific YouTube clones out there, too, and I expect more theme related services to surface – as we speak, so to say.
Blogs in peril?
Time's Person of the year 2006: You.
Up until 2006 – or thereabout – blogs were on everybody’s lips, which undoubtedly lead Time Magazine to dub us all, that’s right; You, Person of the year 2006, even if the scope indeed was wider, incorporating Wikipedia, YouTube – and a number of web 2.0 wonders.
You’d think that the ever-expanding supply of new social media services would lead to the downfall of the, let’s face it, technically outdated blogs, but they’ve shown a remarkable resilience, gradually adapting new technologies. If anything, blogs have been closer integrated with the emerging social media, by way of embedded video clips (as so abundantly demonstrated in this post), widgets displaying third party content – and vice-versa.
Certainly, as the number of blogs has increased, by thousands of percent, I’m sure, so has the number of completely irrelevant blogs – alongside those you may find interesting. The only thing is; that’s not true at all. While you and I may find fashion blogs insignificant, there’s probably four or five on each of us who don’t. Contrary to popular belief, blogs have gradually become a prevailing factor, even in the mainstream media, who’ve struggled to adapt to the new realities, to such extent that even The New York Times was on the brink of bankruptcy, only months ago.
Professional networking
I’ve been a moderate user of LinkedIn for about four years, which I find a lot more useful than the social aspects of social media. If you visit my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that even extracts from this blog are included. And there’s more. Much more. That’s how integrated everything’s become. Keeping track of old colleagues and business partners, seeing who’s available for new challenges – or may offer services that could come in handy – is really useful. As with social media on the whole, LinkedIn isn’t the only “professional” service available. There’s Plaxo and Xing, too, and, I suspect, a great number of others. But really, I just can’t keep up.
Social overload
And then there’s MSN, AOL IM, Google Talk and… and… I really don’t know where to begin, but I fear I may be in over my head. Luckilly I only use a selected few, and very cautiously, too. However, if you feel like me, using Power.com, the one-stop shop for social networkers, may just be the thing for you. And while I’m at it, let me advertise for the Norwegian alternative, Secondbrain. Alas, I haven’t used it since last summer, though. I’ve considered myself a social media drop-out for quite some time, while in reality I’m not. After all, I do still maintain a blog (this one’s the last in a series of blogs) and I try to keep up with Facebook and Twitter, at least once a day.
But I really can’t help thinking that enough is enough. After all, we’ve only just begun. There are legions of web 2.0, if not 3.0, phenomena to come – some here already. Or how about taking tweets to the next stage, with Blip.fm? And of course there’s always good old Last.fm. Hi5 is the world’s third largest online community already, not to mention Loopt… Really, there’s no use in even trying to get the picture, as it’s constantly changing.
At any rate, I think maybe I’ve reached my limit.
Most of these I didnt know existed at all; thanks