Dang…there’s a lot of crazy web apps out there intended to “connect” people together.
There’s the reprehensible MySpace. I tried it out hoping to drive more traffic here. Didn’t really work, but I did get in touch with a few folks I hadn’t heard from since high school. That was kinda neat. Now my profile lays dormant with a message pointing people to a different service…
I also tried Facebook (and still sorta use it), but while I gathered “friends” rather quickly, it seems mostly like a way for people to post a few inane messages on the profiles of those folks they don’t see too often.
There’s del.icio.us, the so-called “social bookmarking” action. I essentially created a profile there for two reasons: 1. Universally accessible bookmarks, and 2. Topical RSS feeds. I don’t usually get around to putting much in there, but then I don’t suppose I often consider much of my web-reading to be bookmark-worthy.
My neglected Myspace profile now directs people to my presence on VIRBº – a slick new profile/friends/music/etc. site that allows for truly beautiful customization (and naturally the hideous is pretty easy, too). I check that frequently, but most of my real-world friends that use any sites of this nature are still stuck on MySpace or Facebook. So I don’t see a lot of activity on my profile.
Finally, there’s the new Twitter app. I’ve already said most of what I can about it for now. I use that pretty heavily, just because it’s kinda fun to play around with. And the BBC World updates are quite useful. Again, only a few people I really know use it, so it’s not as cool as it could be.
I can’t imagine what other forms of Social Networking are around the corner. AOL’s Ficlet’s looks promising and fun, but trying to keep up with one more thing is onerous and ridiculous at this point. Maybe I’ll drop MySpace forever. It’s about time. And Facebook? I’m already tiring of it.
There are too many distractions, and I suppose I’m still old-fashioned enough that I prefer to interact with my friends over a sandwich at a local restaurant instead of teh interwebs.
