jaffamonkey

Unfortunately, there doesn’t exist a single social graph (or even multiple which interoperate) that’s comprehensive and decentralized. Rather, there exists hundreds of disperse social graphs, most of dubious quality and many of them walled gardens.Thoughts on the Social Graph by Brad Fitzpatrick

The more cynical part of me regards social networking generally with suspicion. Companies are right to be suspicious of it too, as the vast majority of activity on them is completely pointless. And I get sucked in too. Are we really expecting the likes of facebook/myspace/twitter, to carry on in finitum, trust them with our details, spend time building up friends/business networks, only to have it all crash along with the company? Is there any value in signing up for multiple social networking sites? Are friends lists accurate? No to all of these - we are all wasting a lot of time, propping up companies that perport to be the future of the internet, and at the same time playing the same centralisation and control business game. In order for technology to truly move forward, we need to extricate ourselves from the dependency. Watching an average joe surfing the net, higlights many symptons of addictions, not the least instant defensiveness when challenged bout their web pre-occupation.

Using the web as a communication and networking tool only works if YOU have control of your information. It seems very convenient to upload all your videos to youtube, but ultimately isnt it better that you have the control, and control how they are viewed, and who views them. I spread myself across social networking sites and any interesting web 2.0 type site going, mainly for marketing and getting an understanding of the supposed new age of the internet. It’s still raw, and its still messy. Still the same rats about de-centralisation, with the same people coming up with ideas based on centralisation principles. Just think about the umbrella term for many sites - “social networking”. Any us? Only if you have a purpose, and use these sites as tools, rther than keeping your life on them.