Thanks to Jorge and Steve Hayes in the past few months I have joined two social networking sites, N-ing and mybloglog. I have made use of these sites in very limited ways so far. I admit being a little puzzled while also being intrigued by these social networking sites, and these are not the first, Friendster, and MySpace, and even to some degree Livejournal have been at similar sorts of things for awhile. The difference is that N-in and mybloglog are not bound to a particular bloging tool. I also admit a deep dislike for the environment of MySpace (and to a lesser degree of Livejournal)so that virtual social networking thing has until now been entirely lost on me, even though I have friends who love MySpace.
I guess I am in part at a loss in this whole virtual social networking because I have enough difficultly of keeping up on with my social networks I have away from the internets.
What has lead to this little reflection though is what seems to be a tendency of people accumulate "friends" and join communities indiscriminately in very large numbers. The controversy over at mybloglong the Steve addressed here almost two weeks ago now, only highlighted for me what in appearances seems to be an indiscriminate acquiring of 'friends' and communities on these sites. I have taken an opposite approach (in part as an experiment)on N-ing and mybloglog:I will be selective because I want to know why you have requested to be my friend, and I wont attempt to friend someone unless we have had some contact that gives me reason to believe I'd want to be connected with this person even if just virtually. Also, I want to be part of communities that frankly I wont be embarrassed about having joined.
By appearances this is a counter move to what appears to be the general practice especially on N-ing and mybloglog. And I have sent messages to people who have requested me as a friend, asking for a little explanation of their request and have not heard back from any of them. So I am curious as to what "friend" and "community" means in these virtual social networking scenarios. For others of you who are on any of these sites why do you make friend requests? What does that mean to you? What does it mean to be a member of these virtual communities? What would you think if the response to a friend request was a request for an explanation of the request?
I've not seen N-ing, but I would not call MBlogLog a social networking cite - that belongs to MySpace, indeed, and is done better by Facebook.
ReplyDeleteI see MyBlogLog as a social blogrolling site, like del.icio.us, but for blogs rather than general web pages.
LiveJournal is also not a social networking site -- its for journals rather than blogs, though the distinction seems to be becoming somewhat blurred these days. Strictly speaking a blog is a weblog -- links to and comments on web sites one has visited. A good example of a traditional is A conservative blog for peace.
MyBlogLog ismore a way of recording blogs one would like to pay a return visit to, but not necessarily one one would like to have on one's permanent blogroll, perhaps because you've liked a post you've seen there. As I see it, you join a blog's "community" to be able to find it again, and others who join your community should have blogs that might interest you.
But, as you say, there are some people on MyBlogLog who have joined over 1000 communities. I suspect that they have ulterior motives for doing so -- they are selling something. I am always suspicious of blogs that are tagged "entrepreneur" or "marketing" in MyBlogLog. They atre probably just hoping that you'll visit their blogs to read the ads for whatever they are selling. It's getting so bad that there's even an image of Jesus as a used car salesman doing the ropunds -- I've blogged about it this morning. Huckterism is all the rage.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI see your point about the definition and distinction between "social blogrolling" and "Social Networking". (Oh thanks for mentioning Facebook, I new there was another one outthere but couldn't remember it when I was writing the post). However, I'd like to push around some definitions and push some similarities I am seeing between all these virtual means of connecting with people and/or their web performances/virtual selves.
I will begin with Livejournal, as you say it is for journals, however, you can have "friends" (many of the features that might make life journal attractive are around those features). One has friends at least in part to keep track of their journal. Also, one can and people do create "communities" of common interest, I believe often related to a journal or one's own journal.
The first connection I made (perhaps erroneously) was between the way the "friends" feature in Livejournal also serves as a sort of Blogrolling though in perhaps a more dynamic and social and networking way. That is through having these friends listed and feeds of their journals/blogs found on your journal pages. This appears to me to be analogous at the very least to mybloglog. Where as a blogroll is a static thing mybloglog creates the opportunity for one to more readily see the interlocking networks of blogs. Naming this environment "communities" suggests to me something social. And while it may be a form of blogroling it opens up blogroling to a more interactive network via at least in part the messaging feature that created the controversy that was the occasion of your post on July 2.
There's another one too -- Tribe.net.
ReplyDeleteI think it's been around longer than some of the others.
Thanks I might check it out.
ReplyDelete