4 ms·

Article isnt saying much, and pretty much misses the point of social networking in general. there is a huge gap between your friends that you talk to every day

Article isnt saying much, and pretty much misses the point of social networking in general. there is a huge gap between your friends that you talk to every day, and long lost strangers you havent seen in 20+ years. not only that there is a difference between the amount and type of information thats exchanged online / face to face. facebook / twitter etc enable the type of information exchange that people have been trying to do since forever, in a better way. the idea that they will just quietly pass through when didnt some study put facebook as 90% of internet time somewhere recently? just a bit off base.

greendestiny 17y ago
So far the only thing that has knocked off social networking sites has been other social networking sites.
- TweedHeads 17y ago
  Like geocities, then friendster, then livejournal, then orkut, then myspace, then facebook, then twitter, then (insert next fad here)
  - philwelch 17y ago
    Geocities wasn't social networking, it was free web hosting for people who didn't care about having their own domain name. LiveJournal is a quasi-social blogging platform, MySpace never sustainably spread past a teenage/preteen/music niche, and Facebook/Twitter are complementary services (Facebook is privacy oriented and Twitter is publicity oriented).
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    But Twitter didn't knock off Facebook at all. My bet is that Facebook doesn't die off, and it's because Facebook captures what really matters for social networking: keeping track of friends. That's why it beat MySpace. Before Facebook, no social network was good. Each one was a bit less shitty than the one before it. Facebook's Feed was what pushed Facebook over the top, and it's powerful enough that Facebook won't lose what it's got. Facebook might waver in popularity, but at its core it's so good that people have no reason to switch, whereas with every other site there was no reason to stay once something better came along. Among my contacts, the only ones that use Twitter are the publicity hounds. The ones who want to keep in touch use Facebook and Facebook statuses, and because statuses are more interactive than Tweets (comments and likes), that's the sticky part of my communications world. I don't get the people calling Facebook a fad. Perhaps it's only coming from people that aren't part of the Facebook generation? Looking at it from within, as I'm doing, the difference between this and MySpace/Livejournal/Friendster is enormous.
davidw 17y ago
> there is a huge gap between your friends that you talk to every day, and long lost strangers you havent seen in 20+ years. The Cynic: Yeah, you care enough to stay in touch with one, and not so much in the other case. Sure, it might be kind of fun to catch up, and in some cases renew a friendship, but generally if you'd cared, you would have stayed in touch anyway.
- daleharvey 17y ago
  exactly, I have various levels of "connections", for my close friends facebook / twitter is useful for passive information, they might say they watched a film and it wasnt great, I dont discuss every film my friends have ever watched, but I would take into consideration their opinion. For friends that I dont live nearby, I can keep track of what they are up to, say hello once in a while, and not lose track of them for 20+ years, then when they or I have time to go visit I know where to get in contact. I have people that I meet through the work I do, I want to know what they are working on, if they are working on something cool that I am interested in then I find out. for people I dont even know but seem to consistently talk about things I am interesting in then I dont need to ask for them to send me a weekly update email
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

greendestiny 17y ago

So far the only thing that has knocked off social networking sites has been other social networking sites.

TweedHeads 17y ago
Like geocities, then friendster, then livejournal, then orkut, then myspace, then facebook, then twitter, then (insert next fad here)
- philwelch 17y ago
  Geocities wasn't social networking, it was free web hosting for people who didn't care about having their own domain name. LiveJournal is a quasi-social blogging platform, MySpace never sustainably spread past a teenage/preteen/music niche, and Facebook/Twitter are complementary services (Facebook is privacy oriented and Twitter is publicity oriented).
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  But Twitter didn't knock off Facebook at all. My bet is that Facebook doesn't die off, and it's because Facebook captures what really matters for social networking: keeping track of friends. That's why it beat MySpace. Before Facebook, no social network was good. Each one was a bit less shitty than the one before it. Facebook's Feed was what pushed Facebook over the top, and it's powerful enough that Facebook won't lose what it's got. Facebook might waver in popularity, but at its core it's so good that people have no reason to switch, whereas with every other site there was no reason to stay once something better came along. Among my contacts, the only ones that use Twitter are the publicity hounds. The ones who want to keep in touch use Facebook and Facebook statuses, and because statuses are more interactive than Tweets (comments and likes), that's the sticky part of my communications world. I don't get the people calling Facebook a fad. Perhaps it's only coming from people that aren't part of the Facebook generation? Looking at it from within, as I'm doing, the difference between this and MySpace/Livejournal/Friendster is enormous.

davidw 17y ago

> there is a huge gap between your friends that you talk to every day, and long lost strangers you havent seen in 20+ years. The Cynic: Yeah, you care enough to stay in touch with one, and not so much in the other case. Sure, it might be kind of fun to catch up, and in some cases renew a friendship, but generally if you'd cared, you would have stayed in touch anyway.

daleharvey 17y ago
exactly, I have various levels of "connections", for my close friends facebook / twitter is useful for passive information, they might say they watched a film and it wasnt great, I dont discuss every film my friends have ever watched, but I would take into consideration their opinion. For friends that I dont live nearby, I can keep track of what they are up to, say hello once in a while, and not lose track of them for 20+ years, then when they or I have time to go visit I know where to get in contact. I have people that I meet through the work I do, I want to know what they are working on, if they are working on something cool that I am interested in then I find out. for people I dont even know but seem to consistently talk about things I am interesting in then I dont need to ask for them to send me a weekly update email

deleted 17y ago

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