social networking – Derrick Kwa

Yes/No Friendships

Jan 5, 2008

Doc Searls posted an interesting comment on his blog:

A few years ago, when Google’s Orkut presented the first of the truly useful and enjoyable “social networks,” Rael Dornfest one night at a bar jokingly walked up to a series of people, pushed his face into theirs and yelled “YOU ARE MY FRIEND! YES OR NO!”, to mimic the extremely clunky way that Orkut failed to replicate the nuanced methods by which humans have always formed and maintained friendships.

It got me thinking about social networks in general. That friend-ing mechanism hasn’t really changed since then. Even now, on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, whatever network you go to, it’s more or less still the same way of friend-ing people.

Yes, features have changed, we can do more things to our friends. But the basic idea of it hasn’t changed. And personally, I think it needs to. I think the “Yes/No” nature of social network “friendships” is far too shallow. And especially as we move more and more of our lives and relationships online, we need a system that goes deeper.

Something that captures the “Friends vs friends” question that CC Chapman asked, and his listeners responded to. For those of you who haven’t yet, I recommend you listen in to that podcast.

In real life, friendships have a lot of nuances. There are different levels of friendship. Different types of friendship. There are different ways in which we make friends. It’s not just the “yes/no” thing that social networks make it out to be.

How can we reflect these nuances online, though? That’s the question. I don’t have a clear answer to it. Just thought I’d throw the question out there. I think a good first step would be having ‘groups’, and having the ability to show different information, and interact in different ways, with the different groups. Maybe almost something like “sub-accounts”. I don’t know how (or if) any of this would work, but I do think we need to think about this, and how this will change.

What are your thoughts? Any ideas on how the ‘social networking’ space can develop further?

Social Media – Changing the World

Dec 21, 2007

Yet another inspiring story about how social media can make a difference. Blogs, Twitter, Podcasting, etc aren’t tools being used to waste time. They aren’t just about being heard, and getting your voice out there. It’s about relationships. Connecting with people.

I personally haven’t gotten involved in this too much partly because I haven’t been on Twitter that much in recent weeks, and partly because I personally don’t know how I can really help (can’t donate online because I don’t have a credit card).

Susan Reynolds is an artist, author and just a really creative person. She’s been quite involved in Twitter and Second Life, and just building relationships in these digital realms. Recently, she has been diagnosed with cancer. After a “full afternoon and multiple stab wounds”, as she put it, she needed something cool to help keep bleeding down and relieve the pain, and finding traditional ice packs too heavy, she decided to use a bag of frozen peas. She took a photo of it, and shared her story on Twitter.

A few days later, Cathleen Rittereiser suggested that people donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas to fund cancer research. Susan’s friends took that off-the-cuff remark, and ran with it. And as of today, we now have the Frozen Pea Fund, which will be raising money for breast cancer research, in Susan’s name. Lots of people are contributing in different ways. Spreading the message by inserting peas into their avatars (pea-vatars as they call it), building the wordpress site, and many other ways I’m probably unaware of.

You can read more from Connie Reece. Or you can go straight to the Frozen Pea Fund and donate.

I just thought I’d try to help by spreading the word. Social media, all this blogging and Twittering and all, is about real people. It’s about real connections being formed. It’s about a real difference being made. Why don’t you join in?