It’s just as I always suspected. It doesn’t work. I had a Friendster account, and got rid of it back when they fired an employee for blogging. I have an Orkut account, but I can’t remember the last time I logged-in on Orkut.
Why? This is a subject I discussed with some of my workers this week. I can’t figure out what social networking is for. I already know who my friends are, and I already know most of their freinds that I want to know. And if they’re are any that my friends think I should know, well, they’ll introduce me. So, again, why would I spend time on Friendster, Orkut or any of the other social networking set-ups?
I’m still not sure, but I think this article pretty much nails it, with five good reasons why—when it comes to social networking— there’s “no there, there.”
- There’s nothing to do there
- It takes too much time
- Traffic alone isn’t enough
- Social hierarchy is really not that attractive
- We already have the Internet
See the article for details, but I can’t find anything in it to disagree with. maybe someday someone will find a way to make social networking work. Maybe sites like MySpace.Com (have an account, never check it) and LinkedIn (just got an account, too soon to tell) already have. But, as far as I can tell, social networking just doesn’t work.
