
Still Struggling with Social Networking  - prakash
http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/still-struggling-with-social-networking
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bkovitz
This guy sounds like a nerd, as Paul Graham describes nerds: oblivious to the
social strategies that normal people use to become popular.

Nearly everything posted on Myspace is meaningless fluff. You'll notice that
most conversations at bars are meaningless fluff. It's just a way to plug in
socially. Most important is displaying how many friends you have, both at
singles bars and on Myspace. The more friends you have, the more popular you
are, and therefore the more people want to be friends with you.

A T-shirt that came out a few years ago: "Tom is my only friend." This is a
way of saying "loser" in the mindset of the socially savvy.

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m0nty
"years after these sites have become the leading destinations on the Web, I
still don't get it. I don't have that visceral, gut understanding of the
attraction and benefits of these services"

Same thing here; I just don't get it. But my theory is this: I have friends I
see regularly and we keep in touch, talk about the big things in life and (for
a few of these guys) they're basically like brothers to me. I have maybe a
dozen other people I like to keep in touch with, and a dozen others who I get
on with but rarely see.

I think some people like to think they have hundreds of friends, but it's a
different definition of "friend" -- more like my category of "people I get on
with but rarely see". Emailing, phoning or (heaven forfend) going out places
with those people probably won't happen too often, but keeping a page on a
social networking site allows you to keep in touch without too much effort or
appearing a bit creepy by emailing or phoning too often. I still don't "get
it" on a visceral level but I can see why some people want to do that.

Summary: if you have loose connections to many people, use Facebook or
MySpace. If you have more intense relationships with a few people, don't.

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noelchurchill
Facebook is useful if you have enough friends to connect with. If you're
struggling with it (and you want to "get it") then you need to meat some new
people, probably younger people, who have real social lives in the real world.
These are the people who add value to facebook by posting pictures, sharing
their lives, and planning their next friday night out with friends. It's just
another medium for communication. I'm sure there were people who didn't "get"
the telephone because they thought "everyone I know is within a couple minute
walk from me. why would I need a telephone to call them?" And I'm not saying
Facebook is as revolutionary as the telephone but it does enable you to
communicate with a greater number of people in a more efficient means. But if
you don't see the point, then you probably don't have many people to
communicate with.

