Weekend update on social networking
:: Monday, December 3rd, 2007 @ 3:42:09 am
:: Tags: Computers, Thoughtful
I attended two 1st year Korean “Tol” baby birthday parties over the weekend, which were both a lot of fun. I’ll post photos, soon. Parties and gatherings are great, but they are tough to schedule at the moment because I’m swamped trying to both catch up with life stuff and get the 2nd issue of Wetpixel Quarterly out the door. It’s 3:30am, and I just finished what I had to do today.
Earlier today, I was thinking a bit about the social-networking applications that I use (Twitter and Facebook, mostly). At Ella’s pseudo-Tol, I was explaining how I use Twitter (someone asked me! it’s not normal party talk…), and one of the most important points I detailed was that I only allow those who are compatible with me into networks that have the potential for evil. Most social networking sites have the potential to be extremely annoying, and additional spam/complication is not something I need in my life. Alex King has given this some thought as well, and luckily, we are compatible. :)
I also brought this up when teaching Kim to twitter last week. Specifically, I told her that I didn’t want to know if someone was eating a bagel, but I might want to know something more substantial, funny, or bitchy. She proceeded to bagel-tweet me a few times during the course of the evening, which was ironically the perfect use of twitter because it made me laugh every time.
Last week, I was bullied into adding the Super Wall application to my Facebook profile because I was sick of not being compatible with 3 million of its users. Today, I received 9 identical Super Wall posts from someone I have only met once. I promptly deleted the messages, wrote to him notifying him that he was doing bad things, and de-friended him. He wrote back and said that he didn’t know anything about spamming everyone, so I forgave him. But it means that Super Wall allows people to do very bad things. He has 102 friends, and if he sent 9 posts to each of them, over 900 spam messages were unleashed unknowingly! I blocked the application.
I’ve started actively blocking all of the stupid ninja, zombie, mega-poke, sheep-throwing, frog-licking applications as I encounter them. Hopefully, by preemptively blocking things, I can continue to have a good experience using the social-networking sites that I frequent.
Oh, and if I remove you as a friend somewhere, it’s not because we can’t be friends. It’s just that we just aren’t compatible within the context of that particular community. And I won’t be offended if you remove me.
I guess preemptive breakup messages can be useful. :)
Journal RSS 
frog-licking applications
Hmmm. I gots to get me one of them.
I tried to sign-up for the twitter thing last night, but I’m not very smart and can’t figure it out on my own. Was going to call you since you’re Twitter God but I’m glad I didn’t since then you would have typed this journal entry at 4:30 instead of 3:30AM. (Assuming I’m not that blonde that it wouldn’t take more than an hour)
Twitter seems useful in that it offers an alternate means of posting — via SMS — but I think it’s useless as a means of reading/receiving posts. The signal-to-noise ratio is way too low and unbelievably annoying if you’re getting alerts on your phone from even one or two people. If I had a big Twitter network and got them delivered on my phone, I probably would’ve thrown my phone out of a window by now. I do appreciate reading people’s feeds, from time to time, via their websites, but…that just means that it’s a convenience to the poster, and not the reader.
Hey, Chester. You’re right — I post to Twitter because it is designed for short messages. I can post from anywhere in the world, in just a few seconds, and it shows up on my home page, Facebook page, and twitter feed. But what twitter is good for is offering the option of reading in various formats, including ones that are pushed to you. I also like having time associated with specific tweets. I know that the person wrote whatever it is that they are broadcasting just moments before I received it.
I agree, though, that delivery via SMS is annoying, especially from people with whom you are incompatible (within the social network, I mean). I only follow a few people via SMS; I read the rest of my twitter friends via an app on my desktop.
Personally, I think the most useful purpose for Twitter would be if one had a selective circle who only used it for announcing whereabouts when anticipating free time and wanting to see who else might be around and also with free time. Like…”In the city today…drinks after 5PM?” sort of thing. Would help cut down on all the times one regretfully discovers that one attended, unknowingly, the same concert as another friend, or was eating lunch alone while just blocks away from a friend doing the same.
this post makes me laugh. i’m right there with you on the social networking sites… just not as harsh.