Social Studies: The Web Past & Present
The Internet has always been a pretty social place. After all, the heart of it is and will always be communication. Since this is a huge aspect of the Internet in general, I wanted to start a series on my blog called “Social Studies” where I talk about, analyze, and comment on the websites that really push people to socialize with one and other.
To get the ball rolling, if you look at almost any of MY social profiles, you’ll find this snarky line:
I don’t particularly like social networking sites, but they do keep me updated with the lives of people I know and care about, but don’t care or know enough to call or see.
The funny thing is, I’ve always enjoyed social networking sites. Even the ones I absolutely hated *cough, cough* MySpace *cough*, I still visited pretty regularly when they were at the height of their popularity. But the most interesting thing about these sites is that most of the people you connect with are people whose friendship wasn’t really that important to you to begin with. People in my generation, and ones prior to my generation, are re-connecting with these people like never before. People in the current generation are never losing touch to begin with. This will probably make class reunions less interesting in the future.
After the jump, I hone in on a few websites that I find most interesting (or interesting when they were popular, at least)!
Circa 2000 I started my LiveJournal, and it was the beginning of blogging for me. Most of the people I “friended” there were people I didn’t know, but there were a few that I did, and LiveJournal really helped me keep in touch with them pretty effortlessly. Up until a few months ago, I read my LiveJournal friend feed pretty regularly.
In college it was pretty common to play the trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Who would have thunk that soon after graduation, a website would come out that would show you the separation of YOU and your friends. Interestingly enough, I met my wife through this site. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the separation. And more unfortunately, Friendster’s popularity went down the tube when MySpace started gaining traction…
Probably my least favorite social site to date, mostly because the MySpace platform was utter crap. That, and they allowed full reign to users when it came to control over their profile. I remember distinctly trying to load so-and-so’s page and having 16 videos trying to load, a song, and a crap-load of images, all at once! I’m so happy to see that site finally fading away.
I didn’t sign up for Facebook right away. I figured I had signed up for so many social networking sites in the past, what was the point. I finally did sign up, and now look, it’s one of the most popular sites on the whole Internet. The funniest thing about Facebook is that it started out for just college kids, and now my 60-something-year-old aunt is on it. Facebook does attract a wide range of people, and it really has a knack for connecting you with people it thinks you might know. This I think is why it’s so darn popular… and the fact that it doesn’t look like a steaming pile of crap like MySpace does.
I have a LinkedIn profile, though I must admit that I hardly ever use it. It’s more of a professional tool than a way to keep in touch with friends. You’d think I’d use it more since I DO have my own business and I am always looking for new, interesting work. I don’t know what it is about LinkedIn, but I am just not that interested in it. Maybe it’s too grown up for me.
Micro-blogging became quite popular pretty recently. And the most popular micro-blogging website is, of course, Twitter. I didn’t join Twitter right away. I didn’t see the point. Actually, a lot of people still don’t see the point. However, there are people that are addicted to this 140-character-limit means of communication. Most probably just find it challenging to say all you need to say in as few words as possible.
It’s a lot like Twitter in the fact that it’s a micro-blogging platform, but Plurk is a bit different in the way it handles and displays it. First, it has a horizontal timeline, which is kind of weird and takes some time to get used to. This horizontal timeline does make commenting easier and more manageable, which is a plus. And Plurk has something called “karma,” which reflects the user’s involvement in Plurk. The more involved you are, the higher your karma. Lastly, Plurk tells you how many Plurks you haven’t read yet. Twitter doesn’t do this, which is unfortunate. Anyway, I was pretty involved in Plurk at one point, but eventually made my way over to Twitter. For all of Twitter’s faults (and there are many) it still has the most people and the interface I find is still more comfortable.