social networks

Facebook opens up to search engines…

September 15, 2007 By Dan Thornton

Hmmmm

Facebook greeted users today with a message stating that in one month’s time, profiles will be listed on search engines such as Google. The listing will only include your name and profile picture, in a move that obviously going to encourage any non-users to sign up if they find you in a result and want to contact you or find out more about you.
You can remove yourself by changing your privacy settings, hence the one month warning.

Even with growing concerns over the amount of information social networks can reveal about an individual, it’s unlikely to harm Facebook. Although it’s another step away from the friendly little college network origin, it’s going to drive further registrations, and continue the growth of Facebook as the most popular social networking site.

But it’ll be interesting to see whether a backlash begins. And whether more people begin to publicise and worry about companies like Rapleaf, Upscoop and Trustfuse, which are all owned by the same parent Rapleaf company. Find out why any social network user should know about these companies, at ZDnet, here.

It’s rapidly coming down to a choice between keeping everything you do offline to ensure your privacy, or accepting that everything you ever do will appear online, like Hasan Elahi’s Tracking Transience response.

You don’t make real friends with Social Networks

September 12, 2007 By Dan Thornton

Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have surveyed social network users, and discovered that you’re unlikely to make real, close friends, as reported on the Guardian
Despite the huge lists of contacts you can accumulate, the number of real, close friends is around the same as you’d have offline, and will tend to be people that you’ve met in real life.
Facebook, Myspace, Bebo et al can allow you to message 100s, or even 1000s of friends (In Robert Scoble’s case), but the actual number of close friends is likely to be about……five.
The reason is that humans tend to only really trust people after face-to-face interaction.

That figure may change as users become more trusting in connections made via social networking, but certainly it suggests that the social network would need to result in face-to-face meetings for real trust to be formed.

There’s also research that suggests those people who interact most successfully online are the same people who are most social-minded offline.

With all this is mind, it suggests that simply joining a social network and adding friends etc will simply maintain your existing contact list. The only way to use them to gain new contacts would be to go to the next level of participating in groups and discussion boards etc, utilising the now old school mechanisms of chat rooms and forums.

Certainly I’m a member of a huge range of social networking sites, but the only new friends who have become in any way close friends have come from two very focused forums, and one of those groups came together to attend a real life meeting.

The one reassuring thing is that it means those who put in time and effort will still gain more from social networking than those who just sign up to be part of the crowd…which is the way it should be.

Social networking: A source of depression?

September 4, 2007 By Dan Thornton

Something that has always angered me about ‘old’ attitudes to the internet, and online socialising, is the view that anyone indulging in such a pastime is a sad loser, who obviously doesn’t have any real friends.

I’ve made some good friends by chatting and hanging out online, and some of these connections have grown into ‘real life’ friendships. I’ve also managed to rekindle friendships with people I haven’t seen in months or years, and add depth to people that I may have only spoken briefly with.

But is there a danger that social networks can become depressing?

I’ve started reading up on social sites and depression, and there are several schools of thought that look to online social support networks as ways to alleviate depression.

For instance, this blog, by Douglas Karr, points out the benefits of online communication (Even if he does slip into a stereotypical dig at the video game loner at the end – obviously not a fan of Xbox Live).

But at the same time, do social networks not still reward those who shout the loudest, just as in real life? They promote the appearance of knowledge, and the repetition of the thoughts of others, without promoting original comments and ideas. Forum posts can develop into debate, but how much of your social networking profiles is about forming and joining groups, just to say you’re a member?

And once the initial buzz of adding everyone you’ve got in your contacts list has subsided, and you experience a lull in the social action, will this not reinforce any ideas of isolation? Leading to users frantically refreshing the page in the hope a new friend will have added them, or a new post will have appeared?

I’m a member of numerous forums, social networking sites and an avid Xbox Live gamer. And yet last night when I logged on, most people were either offline, or busy doing something else. Luckily I quite fancied some single player action for a change, but that occurred with an online network in the 100s, and probably closer to the 1000s. If you’re prone to feeling rejection, and have a smaller network, it could be a fairly common occurence…

I’m not sure what the answer is. Any automated solution would be uncovered quickly, and no-one keeps Tom at the top of their Myspace friends for long. But at a time when people can be putting in an enormous effort to update their Facebook, Myspace and Twitter accounts, whilst checking out their favourite forums, it’s going to feel disapointing if they aren’t rewarded with interaction, even for one evening.

Not the most cheery post for a social networking fan, but one that is worth thinking about. Disapointment is the biggest enemy of converting new users to a website or community, and if you can tackle it head on, then you’ve got a good start in building decent, organic growth for your project.

Social networking site angers users…

September 2, 2007 By Dan Thornton

It seems like Twitter and the blogosphere is full of complaints about new social networking site Quechup. Just look at a quick Google search.

Lots of sites now offer to search your online and offline email and IM clients for people you know who might be using the same service. And most will then let you select who you might wish to invite.

But it seems Quechup indiscriminately emails everyone from any address book you list.

Bad, bad Quechup.

It’s stopped me signing up to find out if they’re doing anything different, especially as the homepage suggests not. Without a compelling reason to risk spamming all my friends, I’ll let everyone else try it out!