so i’ve had google wave for the past month now and i’m still confused as to what exactly i’m supposed to be using it for. anyone else having this problem?
i saw this chart the other day and it made me think about how many platforms/sites i’ve signed up to over the years. it also made me think about how you define SNS today, and how the lines have become totally blurred.
i’ve been emailing with my friend merek about being too linked in, or if it’s even possible to be so. how much is too much? sometimes it feels like i’m twitter/blog/facebook’ing everything in my life (my tumblr is linked to facebook which is linked to twitter and round and round and round it goes) but to what end?
i don’t know if i could really say that my overall quality of life is greater improved because of my overzealous net use, although i can point to a few key instances where having an online web presence have lead to cool opportunities i wouldn’t have otherwise been offered. generally, i don’t feel like i’m overwhelmed, although he does and maybe it’s a generation thing. i’ve been online since i was around 13 or 14, and despite living in china with it’s infamous GFW, my relationship with the internet has continually evolved and grown.
in the last 10+ years of internet use, i’ve signed up for/used/used then scorned/obsessively followed the following:
digg, del.icio.us, technorati, youtube, linkedin, facebook, myspace, friendster, flickr, twitter, livejournal, youtube, xanga (srsly), deviantart, last.fm, nexopia, photobucket, nexopia, pandora, couchsurfing, orkut, makeoutclub (!!!) google wave, ning, buzznet, tumblr, imeem, epicurious, fotolog, HI5, vox, yammer, windows live, opendiary, blogspot, stumbleupon, posterous, metacafe, catster/dogster (!!), showhype, muxtape, hypemachine, dopplr…
keep in mind that this list doesn’t include the myriad of obligatory sign ups i have for dozens of newspapers, instant messenger accounts, etc, or the number of message boards i used to post to as a pre-teen figuring out the internet. so what’s the point?!
POSTSCRIPT: upon further reflection, i don’t want this post to sound overly whiney or indecisive, the internet has been great for certain things, the main result being the introduction to some people who i’ve been friends with for years and years. i didn’t meet my best friend from highschool until junior year, although we quickly established that we had been both obsessively posting to the same message board for years, and people like drew and i had been in contact for years as well before he moved back to shanghai and we got to become REAL LIFE FRIENDS. sean and dan are people i have been in contact with since i was a wee teenager, and over the years our paths have merged countless times through mutual friends (sean emailed me the other day saying he’d run into one of my friends in Tokyo, somehow it came up that we all knew each other, another amazing small world moment that blended real life and the internet!). also, just this weekend, allister and i made the connection that we have both “known” our friend susana for years, despite neither of us having actually met her – so, yes, i’m thankful for the endless connections i’ve made, but it still begs the question if being a computer nerd has been all that worth it.
.
When I talk to people who are less internet savvy– people who don’t use feed readers, who don’t blog, who think X (whatever X is…Facebook, Twitter, IMing) is a waste of time– I find I am much better informed than they are. I know more about the news, more about the tidbits that interest me & might just interest them (Oh you didn’t know Y movie was coming out? I’ve been seeing trailers for like a year! Did you know Z actor is in it? & it is getting good reviews!) On top of that, I know more about my friends– honestly, I sometimes can’t see how people who have long distance friends call themselves friends, when they aren’t even in-touch enough to know when they get married or have kids or whatever.
So yeah. I want MORE internet, not less.
But I also can’t figure out what to do with wave.
As noted social networking expert Sen Ted Stevens so aptly noted, “The Internet Is A Series Of Tubes!!” Social networking is less about the tubes, and more about what you put through them. The quality of the connection and the interaction is what matters most. While it may be time consuming and frustrating to build profiles and link/synch updates on all these competing niche portals, it’s an investment we make for the chance to meet cool and interesting people that we can learn from. I’m fond of SN’s ability to be a boundary neutralizer / equalizer as it has facilitated my meeting of many many cool people who aren’t “like me” (older/younger, different culture, different background, different industry) and who therefore might have been very difficult for me to initially meet in real life. It’s pretty fascinating to learn about someone online / trade ideas, then eventually meet them in person at KAIBA or somewhere else to see what they’re really all about. Meeting people who swim in a different stream from you is a great way to keep your creative passion going.
so yeah, hook me up to the tubes. pump me full of your knowledge. tip me to your latest fave track or band. show me the art of your bestest secret undiscovered photographer. challenge what i know, and teach me what i do not know yet.
it’s all good. it’s all progress.
I find it difficult to start using Google Wave, since anybody I’d like to start collaborating on things with . . . is not on yet.
Were you on AsianAvenue?
thanks for all the comments! TERENCE, i was TOTALLY on asian avenue, haha. totally forgot about that site! i also still can’t figure out google wave, but haven’t actually spent much time trying. the interface is so hideous i can hardly look at it, so…. we’ll see.
and also, totally agree about the keeping in touch bit – especially living oversees, can’t imagine not having outlets like facebook/twitter etc to keep tabs on stuff going on back home. there’s also a really nice rhythm that starts to form after following your friends for a while (especially on a site like twitter), you start to hear about everyday normal things that give loads of insights you wouldn’t normally learn about in regular social situations, i dunno. more information! more internet!
Haha! I actually met a girlfriend on Asian Avenue way back at the dawn of 2.0.
as someone who first ventured overseas pre-mass-web access (1996 moved to rural Guangdong) – I totally see how useful Facebook and Twitter and everything online is – I can now keep in touch with friends in LA, SF, Van, Houston, Hong Kong, New York and Shanghai without too much fuss.
I used to write letters. LETTERS!!!