Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Social Networking


Social Networking sites have been all the rage for the teen set for several years now, and this old dog as been reluctant to take part. I figured they checked your age at the door and anyone over the age of 30 was automatically placed on a watch list as a potential pervert. One of the more obvious reasons I steered clear, revolved around a very cold reality of all SN sites. When updating your “Personal Page” as to what it is you are currently “doing” you were in a fact lying. In the past, if all users of My Space, Facebook, Twitter, etc, were truthful, everyone’s status would read the same. “I’m sitting at my desk surfing and wasting time” is what they’d read, because you couldn’t possibly be “doing” anything and updating your status at the same time. Duh!

Enter the iPhone. Now it’s possible to update your status on the go, while you’re actually doing what you say. But more importantly, two mobile Social Networker’s might actually hook up and “do” something together because they are now in the loop. "Mike is at Flat Branch sipping a Barley Wine..." Couple that with some peer pressure from local cycling mates to join in, and I reluctantly started to investigate this phenomenon my own. The Facebook app for the iPhone is pretty slick. In fact I almost like it more than the full web version. At a glance you can get a snapshot of what’s going on with all your peoples, and even start up a chat with those currently online. None of this is really new technology, but is pretty cool in its delivery. Plus, with this you can essentially keep track of those you’re interested in and block out the rest, (not the case on message boards, etc). And hey, its free, and I really like free.

The newness is already starting to wear off, but it is kinda fun. Still I cant help but feel like a high schooler updating my status. Maybe I’ll stick to blogging.

No comments: