Social networking or just collecting marbles?
Category Social Networking
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I got invited to join yet another social networking site a couple of weeks ago - naymz.com - which of course I've joined. Naymz seems to be selling itself on its system of ranking .. ie you can get recommendations and get more points. Of course you can do some basic stuff like upload a picture and get a small number of points but you really need the recommendations for the big bucks.
But this got me thinking ... how many social networking sites do you need and is it not all just a bit like collecting marbles? I don't know if marbles is popular across the pond ** but I certainly remember having a bag of marbles and you wanted at least one of each kind - oilies, milkies, steelies and cats eyes - ring any bells? So when it comes to building your network is making connections a bit like getting a new marble?
Not that I'm comparing my connections to small balls but despite it being about "networking" and "social" it doesn't actually feel that social. You fire an email off with hopefully an inoffensive message asking them to acknowledge you and hope for a reply. What do you do if you get a positive reply - say thanks? What if you don't get a reply - do you strike this person off your list never to be contacted again. Then what to do when you have that contact - email them from time to time, pick up the phone every so often - or (as I suspect so many connections are) ignore the person until you remember that they might be helpful in a given situation? All of this doesn't sound very social and I wonder if I'd be just as well with an address book? This certainly doesn't seem to be the situation on the 'real' social sites (Face book et al) where people are talking about their social lives - but will it translate to a business context?
Now maybe this is all being too cynical or I'm just not getting it, but I'd really like to know if there is any real concrete evidence that social networking has some tangible benefit. The best I can offer so far is that I got a job interview as a result of being on Linkedin. Should I be actively looking for people on Linkedin - but I don't really have a need to do that
I think even IBM is struggling with this. From all the their presentations I get the reasons for why it should be good but the arguments are not that concrete and a lot of people needing convincing that social networking, particularly in a business context has real value.
Has anyone seen any real benefit and if so what? Or are we all just going to have to wait and see?
** and I guess it isn't that popular in the UK either these days - I think kids collect games consoles now.
Bookmark :
I got invited to join yet another social networking site a couple of weeks ago - naymz.com - which of course I've joined. Naymz seems to be selling itself on its system of ranking .. ie you can get recommendations and get more points. Of course you can do some basic stuff like upload a picture and get a small number of points but you really need the recommendations for the big bucks.
But this got me thinking ... how many social networking sites do you need and is it not all just a bit like collecting marbles? I don't know if marbles is popular across the pond ** but I certainly remember having a bag of marbles and you wanted at least one of each kind - oilies, milkies, steelies and cats eyes - ring any bells? So when it comes to building your network is making connections a bit like getting a new marble?
Not that I'm comparing my connections to small balls but despite it being about "networking" and "social" it doesn't actually feel that social. You fire an email off with hopefully an inoffensive message asking them to acknowledge you and hope for a reply. What do you do if you get a positive reply - say thanks? What if you don't get a reply - do you strike this person off your list never to be contacted again. Then what to do when you have that contact - email them from time to time, pick up the phone every so often - or (as I suspect so many connections are) ignore the person until you remember that they might be helpful in a given situation? All of this doesn't sound very social and I wonder if I'd be just as well with an address book? This certainly doesn't seem to be the situation on the 'real' social sites (Face book et al) where people are talking about their social lives - but will it translate to a business context?
Now maybe this is all being too cynical or I'm just not getting it, but I'd really like to know if there is any real concrete evidence that social networking has some tangible benefit. The best I can offer so far is that I got a job interview as a result of being on Linkedin. Should I be actively looking for people on Linkedin - but I don't really have a need to do that
I think even IBM is struggling with this. From all the their presentations I get the reasons for why it should be good but the arguments are not that concrete and a lot of people needing convincing that social networking, particularly in a business context has real value.
Has anyone seen any real benefit and if so what? Or are we all just going to have to wait and see?
** and I guess it isn't that popular in the UK either these days - I think kids collect games consoles now.
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Comments
And yes, every now and then I got invitations from yet another social network, but it's impossible to maintain all those different profiles and contacts that way. My goal is to maintain only one social site and leave the rest as is. And even that is too hard
Posted by Martin Vereecken At 08:50:02 On 23/04/2008 | - Website - |
These (anti)social networking sites are going to go the way of email eventually. The thrill of something new subsides and it becomes a challenge and a chore to actually keep it up to date.
The next big thing - a social networking portal that displays updates from all the existing ones together. Or just use a dedicated email address to send the updates to.
Posted by Grant%20Norman At 09:56:45 On 24/04/2008 | - Website - |