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MySpace, ByeSpace, ThySpace, BuySpace

So, the WSJ article. The life and death of an idea. OK, I'm being a bit severe, but I'm listening to some fab, bippy-hoppy, electronica right now from Eric Amarillo. I'm just dancing in my chair while I write this. How does electrified happiness translate into the demise of social networking sites? It doesn't. I just wanted to include a little something from my life. Because I want you to know me. ME. I want you to rank me, file me, serial number me. I want you to judge me. Based solely on my music choices. Or how many friends I have on Friendster. Or how good my package looks in my flak suit as I suit up to fly a plane. [That's a bit of an obscure reference, I think. Did they actually let him fly it? Dumbass.] I must say this peppy amalgam of sound is extremely repetitive. Like EXTREMELY. But it's like the best eight bars of the peppiest tune. Over and over. So you keep getting excited again and again. Now, Air just came on. Totally different feel. OK, back to life and death.

Vauhini Vara is a size queen. She laments the unwieldiness of MySpace. She discusses the infection of social networking sites by greedy advertisers. (Is there anything, anything at all, that doesn't have advertising attached to it these days? Does Cheetos sponsor everything? Is everything "brought to you by" one of the zillions of Johnson & Johnson products? It is a sad, sad day.) Vara quotes Judit Nagy, VP of Consumer Insights at Fox Interactive Media as saying that MySpace is "moving from a growth spurt into a phase of maturity." Isn't it a bit to early to use the term "maturity"? We talked about this a tiny bit last night. Or at least Colin tried to get us to talk about it. Where are we going with all this? What is the future of social networking? Can we even answer that question now? Isn't it still too early for predictions? The co-option of SNS by advertisers may drive them to an early grave at this rate.

In my ponderings over the separation between one's online identity and one's real identity, I found this in Vara's article. She talks about a fella who chose to terminate his account with MySpace because of the porn spamming. This is how she phrased it:

"Last spring, Mr. Kalyn killed his MySpace profile."

KILLED? Yikes #3. This plays along with my aghastness (aghasticity?) at MonkeyPuppy's blurring of the me/my profile lines. Colin always asks, "Are we our blogs? Do we write them or do they write us?"

Our very own JoeyDee has some ideas for computer cryogenics that might answer the question.

Teenagers...Yikes!

For last night's class, we read the How Teenagers Hijacked the Internet article. Yikes. A lotta them.

Yikes #1:
"Wikipedia gets 54% of its traffic from Google search results. The majority of Wikipedia visitors then proceed to MySpace or Blogspot, both of which use Google as their search service."
[Kinda vicious cycle, no? Kinda bordering on some Big Brother action, right?]

The "intimate relationship" between these entities has affected the true, or organic, nature of their symbiosis. Even though Google's Big Daddy program "still calculates the popularity of Websites by counting incoming links," the article suggests that the results are still manipulated. Due to this behind-the-scenes backscratching, the value or popularity of a website may not actually have organically grown. We like to think that sites are popular because they have caught on, that they have an audience, that their cleverness in content and design has won them the popularity they deserve. But in truth, that doesn't really matter. Which takes us to...

Yikes #2:
"Wikipedia, the 'encyclopedia' whose 'editors' are mostly unqualified teenagers and young adults is touted by Google as an authoritative source of information." [You thought that was enough? No, the Yikes grows into the following YIKES] "In search results, it is placed well ahead of sources of veritable information such as universities, government institutions, the home pages of recognized experts, the online full-text content of peer-reviewed professional and scholarly publications, real encyclopedias (such as the Encarta), and so on." YIKES. After our discussions of the value of Wikipedia, doesn't that statement undermine Google's credibility?

Crash

So, MonkeyPuppy's MySpace page crashed my Firefox program. Nice.

But I must say that yikes! That's a lot of information. And the graphic near the top of the page with the woman's face covered with suggestions like: "Forward Me," "Block Me" or "Rank Me" is a bit unnerving.

What does that say about our online identities. Has MonkeyPuppy become this identity? She says "Rank ME," not "Rank my profile." The lines are blurred between fantasy and reality, between what you write and what you are. What does that say about self-esteem? The language changes the sentiment. By melding herself with her online presentation (at least rhetorically), MonkeyPuppy seemingly asks for personal approval or disapproval. Quite interesting.

OK. Full disclosure (I love saying that): I was jumping around a bit haphazardly on her page. That may have caused the crash.

Safety Tips from Bebo

Here is a page from Bebo about Internet safety, written by Parry Aftab, the head of WiredSafety.org, "the world's largest online safety and help group." Below is something about them:

WiredSafety, Is A 501(c)(3) Program and the largest online safety, education and help group in the world. We are a cyber-neighborhood watch and operate worldwide in cyberspace through our more than 9,000 volunteers worldwide. (WiredSafety is run entirely by volunteers.)

Our work falls into four major areas:

• help for online victims of cybercrime and harassment
• assisting law enforcement worldwide on preventing and investigating cybercrimes
• education
• providing information on all aspects of online safety, privacy and security.

Together with our affiliate, www.wiredcops.org, specially-trained volunteers patrol the Internet looking for child pornography, child molesters and cyberstalkers. We also offer a wide variety of educational and help services to the internet community at large. Other volunteers find and review family-friendly Web sites, filter software products and Internet services. Along with the volunteers of our affiliated WiredKids.org, our WiredTeens and Teenangels, CyberMoms and CyberDads volunteers speak at local community groups and schools around the country teaching Internet safety. Our Cyber911 help line gives netizens access to help when they need it online. We are proud of our reputation as the one-stop-shop for all cyberspace safety, privacy, security and help needs.

WiredSafety is headed by Parry Aftab (also a volunteer), a mom, international cyberspace privacy and security lawyer and children's advocate. Parry is the author of The Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace (McGraw-Hill), which has been adapted and translated around the world. WiredPatrol volunteers range in age from 18 to 80. WiredKids range from seven to twelve, and the Teenangels from 13 to 18, and these programs are run in conjunction with WiredKids.org, also headed by Parry Aftab. WiredSafety backgrounds include everything from TV personalities, teachers, stay-at-home moms, retired persons, law enforcement officers, and students to PhD's and writers.

Bebo

My new best friend Fred Stutzman pointed us to Bebo (among other SNS in his blog). This is what I found:

Bebo is the next generation social networking site where members can stay in touch with their College friends, connect with friends, share photos, discover new interests and just hang out.

From previous experience, the people who work at Bebo have learned a lot about what makes social networks fun, and believe that with Bebo they've taken social networking to the next level. But, we're never satisfied with where we are today, so please do send in any suggestions on how we can improve our service to better meet your needs. We promise we will listen and keep improving Bebo.com!

Bebo, Inc. is based in San Francisco, California.

Now, they say they've taken it up a notch, but don't say how. I'll keep poking around.

From Fred

Fred Stutzman refuted my ramblings about community. Well, not DIRECTLY...

However, people can't and don't want to be active on too many social network sites. We simply don't have the time to spend checking messages and keeping up with all the action in all those different walled gardens. So that's why we all join Myspace and Facebook, and not your social network.

So the "build it and they will come" proposition is false.

Let's Hear It For The Boy

Let's toast Reality!

I failed to wend my way to this point in my post from two posts ago:

After all of my online dating, showing up at people's doors to find out they were too not-what-they-said-they-were or not-what-I'd-hoped-they'd-be, I realized there's nothing like a good, old fashioned date. In person. Yeah. I mean actually meeting the person, sensing their energy, seeing their face, smelling their [I don't know! Where am I going with this?]. I have concluded that the in-person, you-just-know, I'll-know-the-moment-I-meet-them energy exchange is the most important. We've all heard of the "He's perfect on paper" lament. And it's true. I've had that. Perfect. On paper. But not in person. Terrific, smart, talented, artistic, likes to cook, all of it. But the spark wasn't there. I need the feeling. The gut feeling. The deeper, this-is-something feeling.

AGAIN I've betrayed myself. I've clearly checked the DATING box on my profile. I've never even OWNED a My Little Pony.

Communitizing

Good points in Clay Shirky's musings on online communities. Community is organic. I live next door to a restaurant called Joe Allen. It is owned by Joe Allen. It is a bistro of sorts that serves the theater community here in NYC. It has become quite famous over the last 50 years with no advertising. Joe created a place for theater folk to hang out after shows and let it build quietly. It is now filled with celebrities and theater people and tourists every night. He has Joe Allen restaurants in London, Miami and Ogunquit, Maine. He opened Orso restaurant next door to Joe Allen in 1983, with the same m.o. There are Orso restaurants in London and Los Angeles. Last year, Joe opened Bar Centrale, upstairs from the New York Orso. Again, he let it build solely on word-of-mouth. We just got word this week, about one year later, that Orso and Joe Allen staff members are not allowed to mention Bar Centrale to customers anymore. The Bar has too many regulars already who expect to be seated after theater. No more new people. In one year.

That is how a community is built. Let it generate on its own. If you build it, they will come.

I Can't Be Clever All The Time

I want to respond to some of the stuff we're reading this week, but I'm too tired and uninspired to come up with a title for this post. Consider it Homework #14.

Cheers is a place where everybody knows your name. Do we all wish they'd type "SPAZEBOY!" or "COSMO JILL!" every time we logged on? Are we secretly jazzed every time our blogs are linked to or someone mentions us in their musings? Do we desperately try to keep with up with our online friends' lives via their blogs? Do we want to know each other?

I am still mystified, in a sense, by the desire for the heretofore anonymous bloggers to want to convene at, say, a convention. The beauty of anonymity, one might say, is that it affords one more liberties, more freedom of expression, for some. Didn't we read somewhere that while the Internet offers a networking opportunity, it also keeps people away from real-life social situations? Its usage is almost oxymoronic. (My spell-check flagged that one.) The digital community has come to replace the flesh-and-blood. We "meet" new people. Discuss our common interests. And no matter how honest and revealing we might be online, there is no truth-o-meter. I may not actually be a thirteen year old girl who is conflicted about what to do with her My Little Pony playset. The oxymoronity (flagged) continues. I can be completely honest about myself or I can completely hide my identity behind a manufactured persona. There is no way for the viewer to know.

This takes me to this week's subject: social networking. The Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde dynamic—or perhaps it is the Diana Prince/Wonder Woman dynamic that is at work here. Who do we present to our "Friends" on Friendster? The initial impulse for joining an online social network should be noted. The 13yo girl could be looking for other lamenters of lost youth on MySpace. Or I could be looking for a boyfriend on Friendster. Or our cool cat from LiveJournal could be tossing around a new IM language she shares with her boyfriend, just to entertain the small audience of her friends.

I began experimenting with social networking in AOL chat rooms back in, probably, 1993 or so. There were no pictures then. Just profiles. People would often put physical descriptions of themselves in there, along with personality stuff and likes-and-dislikes. The user perused the profiles and then contacted the person based on what they had written about themselves. Interesting that the physical appearance was completely taken out of it. Now, people quickly learned what traits in the description attracted people. So, often, many people had similar physical characteristics. The truth was revealed only when they opened the door to their apartment.

When I revisited the chat rooms a few years later, I learned that I would not even be given the time of day without a picture posted up there. (I believe we still had to scan in a photograph at that time. It still amazes me how antiquated that sounds and it was probably ten years ago.) Now, the picture helps. But it is still a chosen representation, on the part of the poster, and a mere two-dimensional, see-what-I-want-to-see image for the viewer. How do you choose your photo? Will it be cheerful or brooding? Will it be topless or more modest? Will it be an active, I-play-sports shot or a passive, I-like-piña-coladas-and-getting-caught-in-the-rain shot? All these questions are very important, as they will contribute to your projected image.

Later, these sites expanded to include photo albums. Now you were able to show yourself in many different aspects of life. You could show your friends, your dog, your surfboard. You could write about your faves, in the hopes someone else might like to watch Psycho Beach Party over and over, just like you. Or share your love of The McGuire Sisters AND The Pointer Sisters AND Scissor Sisters. Do they like zany British comedy television like Absolutely Fabulous AND political talk shows like The McLaughlin Group?

No matter how honest you are or if you claim to be Anna Nicole Smith's pharmacist, you have chosen every speck of that online presentation. Different pieces of it will resonate with different viewers. I'm afraid I have betrayed myself a bit. I realize that my point-of-view has mostly been from the dating side of things. Full disclosure: I'm not thirteen. I'm not a girl. And I'm distraught over my Strawberry Shortcake playset.