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social networking and its discontents
I just joined Orkut, as I joined Tribe before that, and Friendster before that.
But I have to admit, I don't quite get the appeal of networking websites.
And it looks like Warren Ellis feels the same way: "[W]hat can you actually do aside from invite all your friends and piss about on a couple of small message boards? ... What happens after that? After you've gotten all your friends in—whom you send email to or IM regularly in any case, presumably. That's it. All done. Until, I guess, yet another social network system opens and you start all over again."
In fairness, I can see how they'd be interesting to study (see Danah Boyd's Apophenia, or, even more relevantly, the archives of her defunct Connected Selves blog). But, even with my interest in networking technology, my experience is similar to Ellis': I go to the sites, sign up, wander around for a bit browsing the profiles of strangers, and then wander away.
I might feel differently if I were actively looking to date someone new (I'm not) or if I were trying to do business networking (?).
Have any of you had rewarding experiences with these sites? E-mail me at jeremy [at] invisible-city.com.
Related: Village Voice article which draws rather lazy analogies between Mark Lombardi's drawings, Friendster, and a species of invasive blackberry (Rubus armeniacus). Labels: internet, networks, rants |
Monday, January 26, 2004
7:02 PM
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