Social webbing
Among david_de_beer's links today was one about the question of friending. It's also about the many types of social network available.
My question is not so much about how do you get around the term "friending" with all its old baggage. I don't think you can. "Linking" would appear to be more neutral...except isn't there exactly as much pressure, for those who feel social pressure about these matters, to be linked as well as to be friended?
Isn't that the purpose of Linked-In, to link your buddies, or the people whom you would wish to be seen linked with, and to have them acknowledge you by returning the favor? I took a quick look at it when someone sent a notice wanting to link me. I responded with a yes--costs nothing to be linked and I know the person--but I was thinking, what use is a list of names? Is this all about being two or three degrees from someone with influence? I can name a bunch of important people who are two or three degrees away from me, but it seems to me that being connected (or not) on a list is not going to cause them to whip out the phone and dial my number when they are thinking about handing out largesse in whatever form.
Maybe there's a social hierarchy thing happening here, evaluating people by who is on their list. Like the old days, and who was on your rolodex, or did you have the List of Important Names in Your Industry. I saw the film industry one once, way, way back when, when I ran the copymachines at MGM. I even made a copy, but I never used it for myself--. I did just once provide a contact for somebody, and it came to nothing...as one might expect. It seems to me you've got to have a lot of charisma to invade an important person's private space.
I don't like Twitter because it jumbles numbers in with the text, making it very hard for me to process. I read fast--I need to read fast--something like Twitter makes me judder to a stop so I can dyslexically say the numbers over to myself to make sense of them...and mostly they are just complicated time stamps. Why should I care if it's 8:07 UTC when someone goes to work? And the text is limited to what people are doing at a given time. Is this something that others out there find useful--discovering what your Twitter list is doing at given times? Maybe it is for people on the go.
If I did Twitter, what would my readers find?
[numberjumble] fixed tea
[n.j.] walked dogs
[n.j.] drove teen to school
[n.j.] watered plants for morning
[n.j.] cleaned up kitchen after nightowls cooked midnight meal
[n.j.] started laundrag
[n.j.] sat down to desk at last...
Bor-ring! Why would anyone want to read that? Maybe those of you leading exciting lives, always on the go, get a kick out of reporting your movements via phone links, and then seeing everyone else's.
I think if I did Twitter I would be sorely tempted just to lie.
[numberjumble] Cased the palace
[m.j.] watched drop to see if anyone else was watching
[n.j.] picked up secret message
[n.j.] performed tentacle-sprouting spell over Nasty Politician....
...Except that would be a story, and I'd want to get rid of the limitations of Twitter and start turning it into story form. Maybe that's hidebound, maybe there's potential in Twitterform. Is that what's going on, people's stories within stories? We find storymaking everywhere. Some people are being obvious by writing LiveJournal blogs from the POV of their cats and dogs, or fictional characters, or typing in entries from famous diaries. (I'd do that myself, for the Wynn Sisters, if I had the time)
Anyway, all enlightenment welcome.
My question is not so much about how do you get around the term "friending" with all its old baggage. I don't think you can. "Linking" would appear to be more neutral...except isn't there exactly as much pressure, for those who feel social pressure about these matters, to be linked as well as to be friended?
Isn't that the purpose of Linked-In, to link your buddies, or the people whom you would wish to be seen linked with, and to have them acknowledge you by returning the favor? I took a quick look at it when someone sent a notice wanting to link me. I responded with a yes--costs nothing to be linked and I know the person--but I was thinking, what use is a list of names? Is this all about being two or three degrees from someone with influence? I can name a bunch of important people who are two or three degrees away from me, but it seems to me that being connected (or not) on a list is not going to cause them to whip out the phone and dial my number when they are thinking about handing out largesse in whatever form.
Maybe there's a social hierarchy thing happening here, evaluating people by who is on their list. Like the old days, and who was on your rolodex, or did you have the List of Important Names in Your Industry. I saw the film industry one once, way, way back when, when I ran the copymachines at MGM. I even made a copy, but I never used it for myself--. I did just once provide a contact for somebody, and it came to nothing...as one might expect. It seems to me you've got to have a lot of charisma to invade an important person's private space.
I don't like Twitter because it jumbles numbers in with the text, making it very hard for me to process. I read fast--I need to read fast--something like Twitter makes me judder to a stop so I can dyslexically say the numbers over to myself to make sense of them...and mostly they are just complicated time stamps. Why should I care if it's 8:07 UTC when someone goes to work? And the text is limited to what people are doing at a given time. Is this something that others out there find useful--discovering what your Twitter list is doing at given times? Maybe it is for people on the go.
If I did Twitter, what would my readers find?
[numberjumble] fixed tea
[n.j.] walked dogs
[n.j.] drove teen to school
[n.j.] watered plants for morning
[n.j.] cleaned up kitchen after nightowls cooked midnight meal
[n.j.] started laundrag
[n.j.] sat down to desk at last...
Bor-ring! Why would anyone want to read that? Maybe those of you leading exciting lives, always on the go, get a kick out of reporting your movements via phone links, and then seeing everyone else's.
I think if I did Twitter I would be sorely tempted just to lie.
[numberjumble] Cased the palace
[m.j.] watched drop to see if anyone else was watching
[n.j.] picked up secret message
[n.j.] performed tentacle-sprouting spell over Nasty Politician....
...Except that would be a story, and I'd want to get rid of the limitations of Twitter and start turning it into story form. Maybe that's hidebound, maybe there's potential in Twitterform. Is that what's going on, people's stories within stories? We find storymaking everywhere. Some people are being obvious by writing LiveJournal blogs from the POV of their cats and dogs, or fictional characters, or typing in entries from famous diaries. (I'd do that myself, for the Wynn Sisters, if I had the time)
Anyway, all enlightenment welcome.