Connections

Social networking is fascinating, don't you think? I think it has quite a few aspects worth discussion such as:

• Popularity


• Friends vs. Acquaintances


• Extras, such as social interation tools like applications, surveys, and games


• Other

These are all worth while concepts that have manifested themselves in various ways through social networking applications and tools like MySpace, Facebook, etc. But what I've found pretty amazing and will focus on for my paragraph or two here is what I'll call the flocking phenomenon.

I think I first had a Bebo account to track friend's birthdays. Bebo was pretty cool, it was really lightweight and unintrusive and served a very singular purpose: to track basic info about friends lives and activities.

Then came MySpace, which was largely it seemed focused on 'generation Y', but got a smattering of the older crowd's interest as well. MySpace was a step forward from Bebo, it added new things like blogs, music, and photos. It sought to create a personal 'space' that you could show off to friends and acquaintances, or even to strangers. I found a lot of my friends on this site and had quite a little e-community going.

MySpace however had a lot of trouble. There were security issues with accounts being hacked.. There were stories in the news of sexual predators roaming MySpace accounts and luring children into compromising situaions. And there was the amazing evolution of MySpace fame, with people rising to celebrity status in a virtual world in an effort to pour this success into reality and launch careers based on a fictional presence.

MySpace is still alive and kicking, with a few revamps to up its game, but in parallel Facebook has come along and in my opinion taken over the 'clean' aspect of social networking. Facebook has provided a much safer and simpler experience to people who wish to connect. There is less encouragement to be outlandish and creative with Facebook, instead they have kept the focus on content and the ability to expand your personal Web of connections to friends both past and current. And what has become a true testament to Facebook is the migration of people from MySpace to its network, as well as the addition of personalities that would never have shown their avatars on MySpace for fear that the connotation that came with a MySpace account would have a negative impact on their careers or in their personal lives.

Facebook has earned a positive connotation and people have truly 'flocked' to it, building its rapport as a place to keep connected with the people important to us, or even those who are on the periphery of our social group but are worth keeping tabs on. I do often wonder what made Facebook stand out to the more 'average' user as opposed to MySpace or a similar application. Is it because Facebook somehow packaged the features people wanted in the easiset use way? Is it due to the pack mentality, where the initial flood to Facebook brought many others since it was easy to find a large number of friends? Could it be that there has been less negative press about Facebook when compared to a site like MySpace? I supposed it's a combination of all of these things and others I haven't mentioned... not unlike why a particular bar in a city becomes more of a hot spot than another, it's not always due to the obvious factors.

It has really made me wonder what might come next? What will a site like Facebook (which is really just a list of contacts that pushes updates to you rather than asking you to seek them out) do to move forward and what are we to expect of social networking in the future? How will Web2.0 evolve and embed itself in our lives over time? What will the next revolution be in the way we interact with each other?

Do you remember your first e-Mail account? I sure do. And I remember thinking it was useless, why did I need an e-Mail account when I could just talk to my friends in person. Today it would be hard for me to go without e-Mail, I use it at home, at work, I use it to talk to customer service, it's everywhere. Won't it be interesting to see if 'status updates' and 'super pokes' are here to stay or whether there is a communication windfall around the corner that will change the way we relate to eachother on a daily basis? I think so.