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"Much like MySpace, it seems, users are learning that having 100,000 “friends” you’ve never met is much less valuable than connecting with a select number of pe
by DrJokepu 17y ago
"Much like MySpace, it seems, users are learning that having 100,000 “friends” you’ve never met is much less valuable than connecting with a select number of people you know well."
That's hardly a new discovery; I remember when I first tried out this "Internet" thing in '95 I subscribed to all mailgroups I've encountered just because I could and it felt cool to receive mail from people in places like South Africa.
Obviously I quickly learned that it wasn't a very good idea but the point is that the concept of reducing spam by not giving out your contact details to anyone (or in the case of social networks, not following / accepting as a friend anyone) is not new at all.
- tremendo 17y agoCuriously that closing line is one with which I completely disagree. Someone once described the difference between Facebook and Twitter as "Facebook is for people you used to know, Twitter for people you want to know". Speaking for myself, I get a lot of value from Twitter by following people that are smarter than me, and mostly, I don't really "know" them, and they mostly don't know or follow me back. I don't care for follow-backs, I care to get their wit, their pointers, their knowledge, their humor. For "people you know well" there's meatspace, or Facebook when geography makes the former impractical.