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The Difference Between Social Networking and … Social Networking

Typically the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions social networking is Myspace or Facebook, the two prominent social-networking based websites currently online. But have you heard of RSS as a social networking tool? What about YouTube or Twitter?

The entire goal of social networking is to provide communication methods between people, whether those people are family, friends, or simply acquaintances. While Myspace and Facebook definitely fall into the social-networking category, I don’t like to think of them as such. What you accomplish on these two sites, and others like them, is setting up a who’s who page about yourself with outlines of your interests, tastes, and an occasional blurb or journal entry about your life. You may or may not receive an occasional one-to-one comment from a friend. There’s really not much “networking” to it except in already existing social relationships.

On the other hand, services like YouTube and Twitter allow a person to not only establish communication with existing social relationships, but discover and become involved with new content and people. Following someone on Twitter becomes something that isn’t only reserved for your friends but anybody you come along on the web who writes something that interests you, thus opening up the door to more content or ideas from them.

This idea is also clear in RSS. While the original intent was simply to keep you updated on a particular web site’s content without having to actually browse to it, the potential of RSS has become much more. It allows you to subscribe to things which you otherwise would have never visited again. It shows who you are interested in as well as it shows the content producer that they have a following and gives them the opportunity to push out more of their own [b]unique[/b] content.

YouTube allows this content to be put into video form. It allows people to keep up to date with producers they like. It allows viewers to provide comments to the producers which ultimately keeps the cycle going. Viewers get ideas of their own and then become producers.

The very thing that got me into blogging was actually listening to the 2005 Northern Voice live stream podcast. The producers of content gave me ideas for blogging and helped me become a content producer myself. While I am by no means anyone “major” in the blogging community, I’m still doing it and always exploring new ways to get my content out there, both from things I’ve seen other producers do and ideas I get from the community.

This, in my opinion, is the truest form of social networking: It not only allows you to stay connected with people you know but also explore new people and content you otherwise wouldn’t have. You then have the opportunity to become a part of a whole new community.

Give your own content and people will follow. Follow people’s content and they’ll give you more content.

The Power of Blogging in 2008

Ten years ago if you would have told someone you had a blog, they would have been confused. While the term itself has existed for around 9 years now, its current meaning wasn’t realized until around 2003 or 2004. Originally, it simply meant “weblog” or a journal of your life online. You described events that happened to you just like you would in a handwritten personal journal.

These days, a blog is much more than a journal. While many people operate “web journals,” a much smaller portion operates what I would consider to be a true “blog” in its current meaning. Blogs have become a place for not only journalism by the public (which has seriously impacted the area of politics), but also a way to provide and spread information. Some of the most popular blogs on the internet take current events, provide their own opinions concerning those events, and make any recommendations or suggestions as a result.

Blogs have become what I believe the single most powerful and influential medium of the spread of information, whatever it may be, across the internet. Ranging from “how to” articles, to in-depth critiques of politics, to why you liked the movie you saw last night or why you chose to purchase a specific product, it not only covers a wide range of topics, but also carries a lot of power. Blogs get information out there.

I personally saw this power firsthand, albeit not as major as some people have. When I wrote about the trouble I had with Kensington’s website and trouble with Kensington’s customer support line, four days later I received a comment on that post from Kensington’s product manager about the issue. How he found the blog entry, I’ll never know. At no point did I give out my website or email address which could have led him there. Chances are he was doing a PR search concerning Kensington and found my blog entry. One week later, I not only got the product I was looking for, but got it for free and only after he had gone through a bit of trouble to find a discontinued item for me.

While that item was only a mousepad, it even more shows the true power of blogging in 2008. If someone such as that product manager is so concerned about every bit of PR out there about his company, even about a mousepad, how much more concerned should politicians be concerning world matters and the voices of the public?

This is demonstrated by people around the world being executed and imprisoned for giving their opinion online concerning their local politics.

What do you think? How powerful is blogging really, and how will it change things in 2008 and beyond?

I’m Impressed with Kensington

I recently blogged about my mouse pad and my search to find the same item since the one I have now is starting to get old. To my surprise, Tom Pscheidt, the Product Manager for ergonomic products at Kensington found this website and left a comment on that post regarding the issue and gave me direct email contact to him.

That’s impressive. All I wanted was a $5-10 mouse pad and yet he still contacted me regarding the issue. His time spent writing that comment is worth well more than that, yet he still left the comment. That’s customer service. I’m a satisfied customer regardless of whether I can get the mousepad or not.

Thanks, Tom. And thanks Kensington.

Social Networking and its Failure

Let’s take a trip back in time. The year is 2003 and the internet is a rather pleasant place to be, although looking back we wouldn’t make that claim. Myspace and Facebook didn’t exist and half of the world didn’t visit them at least once per day. No one knew what AJAX was let alone used it on their websites. Flash-driven websites were the “cool thing to do.” But most importantly, the idea of using the internet as a “platform” and the convergence of technologies was near non-existent.

Then this whole concept of Web 2.0 came along and everyone was confused about what it really meant. People claimed that their websites were Web 2.0 and companies even dedicated their so-called services to help people make their websites Web 2.0 compatible. Some people even jumped the gun and claimed that Web 3.0 exists.

The change that happened in late 2004 when people started really understanding what the Web 2.0 concept was all about. It was about convergence of internet technologies and using the internet as a platform for full applications. Instead of running a program on your computer, why not run that program on the internet where you can have access to it from anywhere you go?

To be honest, if we’re still dealing with desktop environments on our computers in 15 years, I’ll be surprised. Your entire desktop environment will be web based and you’ll have access to it from anywhere, but your files and documents will be stored locally for safety. You won’t be putting in a CD to listen to music, you’ll be using a music subscription service to listen to anything you want. You’ll have access to anything from anywhere at any time. All of your devices will work together, and all websites will be able to communicate and share information with one another.

And here is where I think Social Networking sites have failed. Their very idea in concept form is awesome. If we can connect technologies, why don’t we connect people together from all over? Let’s create a social map of the world on the internet. However, what social networking sites have lost sight of is that the whole point while doing these things is to converge technologies. With their immense popularity, their potential to drive forward convergence of web technology is just as immense. Why haven’t they taken advantage of it?

Picture this: Instead of you needing to upload photos of yourself to MySpace or Facebook, why not allow you to associate your MySpace account with your Flickr account? What if I could send an email to someone but I didn’t know their email address? What if I could use the information about that person I did know to send them an email? What if I could fully control each and every one of my accounts without even needing to launch a browser? And what if I could update all of my accounts at the same time with the same information?

The possibilities are endless. AJAX is only one very small part of the concept of Web 2.0. AJAX is the User Interface side of the vision of convergence of technology, not the convergence itself.

Social networking sites have failed at what could have been (and what still could be if they play their cards right) an awesome breakthrough in web technology and even your computing experience as a whole. MySpace and Facebook are right now just a place to “hang out” and post silly surveys. They each let it come to that, when it fact it could have been a complete portal to socialization and conversation and the computing experience as a whole.

The “Ask Me” Questions

As many of you know, I have an avenue on my site which allows you to submit questions to me, pertaining to technology, and have them answered. I have gotten quite a few, and answered almost all of them.

But some of the ones I get are either downright annoying and stupid, or outright hilarious. Heck, most of them relate to phpBB questions (which I don’t answer under any circumstances).

So here’s just a few of the questions I’ve received, starting with the most recent:

Titled “geography”

Where is india located?

Titled “haha”

ur funny and I haha’d

What the…???

Titled “phpBB”

OMG HELP ME IM BEING HACKED HE GOT MY PASSWRD

Hey, you, with the stuck caps lock button: I’m in ur base stealing ur IQ.

This guy thought I could help him with his physics questions:

Titled “physics”

Hey can you help me with my physics?

A baseball (m=0.15kg) is thrown with a speed of 30 meters per second at angle of 32 degrees above the horizontal. Neglect air resistance.

1) What is its momentum at the maximum height?
2) What is its momentum just before it strikes the ground?

wuts the answer?? Please its due tomorrow

What do I look like? A physics major? Well, I kind of am as a Computer/Electrical Engineering major, but regardless, I actually laughed at that one.

What is it about technology questions that people don’t understand? Hey, I’m all for the intellectual question that doesn’t relate to technology every now and then, and I’d be glad to deviate from technology, but why can’t they be real about it?

We’ll never know…

The madness begins again

I finally finished the new site. WELCOME! Though, I never reached the goal I set out to accomplish, which was to pretty much create my own custom CMS from scratch. Much to even my own surprise, I got it a bit more than halfway finished and it was shaping up pretty well.

But then Mr. Murphy decided to pay a few visits to me. My work schedule jumped from 20 hours per week to over 38. While this was in the summer and I wasn’t taking any classes, I still had the rest of my schedule filled up with activities. Needless to say, I had literally no free time on my hands anymore.

At this point, I’m back to a 20 hour/wk work schedule, but the fall semester has once again come back. I’m not taking a full term, so I do actually have free time, but for the time being, I just gave up on the project. It was consuming too much of my time and I wanted free time away from the computer for a change. And I wanted to actually get back to doing a good amount of phpBB support work.

So I have given up on that endeavor for the time being. I still have the source code and all of the documentation I wrote for it (mainly for myself since I tend to for get things 5 minutes after I code them). I learned a lot, got a ton more experience, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. But it just wasn’t practical.

That brings me to Drupal, which is the new CMS for the site. Honestly, the coding scheme and technique is a piece of crap and definately not my style, but it certainly gets the job done. And it’s relatively easy to customize once you figure your way around the code a bit, which proved to be a difficult task to say the least.

Regardless, I’ll definately be posting much more often. Hopefully at least 3-4 times per week. I have a lot more to say now than I ever did before.

It’ll be fun.

Oh, and update your RSS feeds to the new URL:
http://www.adamreyher.com/rss.xml