social networking
Monday, May 11th, 2009
at 6:29pm
Over the past decade, the internet has transitioned from being a place where only geeks hung out to a vast cloud full of information produce by anyone and everyone. We’ve gone from a select few making a website dedicated to their cat, to everyone and their cat having a website.
It started with Geocities, Tripod, and Homestead. These websites made it easy for amateurs to the internet to create a very basic website. In the light of modern times, these sites barely exist. But free web hosting continues in the form of free web hosting, free forums, etc. And it has hurt the internet.
1) Free web hosting caters to spam
Since most free web hosting providers are ad revenue based, they typically have very low standards for what types of websites are allowed to placed on their servers. And while some may have rules, they’re rarely monitored or enforced. This has opened the door spammers to create link farms in large numbers, sites that scrape copyrighted content, and just otherwise extremely low quality content.
2) Free web hosting is too easy to use
I’m all for websites providing increasingly easy ways of performing complex tasks — creating a forum on your website in 1999 wasn’t an easy task. But today, it’s a matter of simply signing up for a free forum service. And while I inherently have no issue with this, it allows users who have no clue what they’re doing to undertake very large tasks.
3) Free web hosting promotes technological ignorance
I’m a firm believer that everyone should have access to the internet. I’m a firm believer that everyone should be able to create their own content and place it on the internet. However, that being said, let’s face it: you have to be willing to learn how to do this properly. If you’re willing to pay for web hosting–which is an extremely small fee these days–you’re typically more willing to learn how to effectively manage, maintain, and promote your website. If you’re going to be running a forum, you’re more willing to customize it and encourage a thriving community. if you’re creating a blog, you’re interested in producing quality content. However, if the decision to make a website was made in the 30 seconds it took you to create that free website, chances are it’s not going to succeed.
4) Free web hosting limits the website owner
Okay, so let’s assume that you are a website owner who wishes to really learn about maintaining a website. There’s one problem, though: Free web hosts rarely provide the “customer” with the tools they need to learn. And when you try to ask the hosting provider to do something for you (which you otherwise could have done yourself), you’re met with horrible customer service and support.
5) Free web hosting discourages innovation
When signing up for a free website, blog, or forum, typically you’re presented with a small number of pre-fabricated templates that you can use–with no way to customize them. This, over time, produces a plethora of websites that look and function identically. The website owner is left with very little choice, and browsers of the internet are forced into seeing the same thing over and over again, with little way of distinguishing between content providers.
6) Free web hosting discourages quality content
Free website owners likely don’t truly care about the long-term destination of their website. If it fails, they really haven’t lost anything monetary, besides time. If it doesn’t get maintained, there’s no loss at all. There’s little incentive to produce quality content that people will want to subscribe to and read on a regular basis. You have nothing to lose, and nothing to gain. Unfortunately for the rest of the internet, they have to sift through loads of pointless content before finding what they were looking for or interested in.
7) Free web hosting is quite simply … cheap
And I mean that in more ways than simply monetary scale. If someone is going to become a website owner and maintainer; if they’re going to become a content producer; if they have something valuable to say and share with the rest of us, they should be willing to at least attempt to do a “good job” with it. If you’re not willing to give out something to secure your place on the internet, why would the rest of us want to hear what you have to say?
The free web hosting services cater to the “I want it now” ideology, with little regard for the planning and work required to produce quality content. The internet has been cut because of it. And unfortunately, I don’t think the blade is going away anytime soon.
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
at 2:19pm
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.
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
at 3:29am
One thing that I’ve learned very quickly when I dipped my feet into the world of blogging and online technology is the importance of the reader. Ultimately, you’re not writing for yourself but for your audience. When you write a review of a product, it’s about how that product would be a good buy for your reader. When you give advice or technical support, it’s about putting it in the reader’s terms and applying it to the reader’s situation.
It’s about giving back to the community which supports you by reading your content. It all boils down to one singular idea: the community. Without the community, you have nothing. Sure, you can be producing content, but if you don’t have the backing of the community, your community, you won’t get very far.
The main importance of the community, however, is how the community can help you. A lot of times they will offer suggestions to help improve you. Collectively, this vast amount of knowledge and critique of the work you do becomes critically important to your success. If you don’t embrace the community, you lose everything, including your respect. Not only does this apply to the online blogging world, but also to products and services. I’ve covered this idea more than once (see the two blog entries previous) so I won’t repeat myself.
There aren’t too many ways to involve the community–the more the better. Get yourself on YouTube, or even Twitter. Twitter is one of those things that is ridiculously simple but can have such a profound effect on your community (speaking of which, here is my Twitter). The community subscribing to simple blurbs or mini-posts gets them surprisingly involved. It lets them tune into who you are as a content producer and get into your mind a little bit more on a casual level. Share interesting links or quick thoughts on emerging news. Let them get involved in your thought processes and they’ll only turn around a help you back by offering suggestions.
In summary: everything from products to services to blogging to online content should be first and foremost about the community. Otherwise, you end up with garbage.
Monday, February 4th, 2008
at 1:54pm
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?
Monday, October 1st, 2007
at 10:44pm
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.
