When Social Just Means Another Way To Hype Yourself ...
When Social Just Means Another Way To Hype Yourself
Ever since becoming active on Twitter and FriendFeed I have noticed something that really makes me wonder if in the long run what Robert Cringely wrote the other day might in part be true. In his post Robert equated the clamoring around social networks; and the various offshoots, to the popularity that was enjoyed for a brief time by CB radios. As one who was heavily involved at the time with the whole citizen band radio subculture (who can forget the tweaking to get those bouncing signals from around the world) I can to an extent see the comparison.
While Robert foresees the decline due to the lack of value I look down a different road as to why I think that while social networks might be here to stay they are also creating their own stranglehold that will take much of the life out of them.
The whole purpose; or at least the purpose that is pimped out to the general internet public is that things like Facebook, Twitter and even FriendFeed are a great way to create new friendships, keep in touch with all these new and old friends and to have a conversation with everyone involved. To an extent among the average users this might be the case but in watching these services for some time now I have come to the conclusion that for the early adopter crowd and other A-Lister types conversation is the last thing they are interested in.
For this very large group this whole social engine is nothing more than another way for them to hype themselves and whatever conference/project they happen to be working on at the time. I first got an inkling of this self-gratifying promotionalism as I got involved with Twitter because of my work on TwitBox. Sure there were conversations going on but it was on a two tiered level with very few of the top tier players showing any real interest in the rest of us users. You could see this by checking out the Follower/Following ratio of the people you want to follow.
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