Social Networking "Friends"

Okay, so we have Myspace, Friendster (are they still in business? does anyone use them?), Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and a ton of other "social networking" sites. Why?

First, what is social networking? Are you networking socially? Is that different from networking anti-socially? I could see some guy sitting around in a room by himself trying to network. He wears all black, listens to NIN, and thinks he is cool. Wait, on second thought, maybe social networking on the computer is anti-social. It does not require you to actually talk to anyone, have a conversation or any human interaction. Computer geeks from the late 80s and early 90s have finally succeeded in finding a way to seem cool - they created the perfect networking for them.

Second, why are there so many? How is Myspace much different from Facebook or Friendster? Plaxo and LinkedIn could be cousins. Twitter is in its own little world. (That might be funnier if you knew that twitter limited you to 140 characters. Really, how much can you say in 140 characters.) Maybe we really just need two or three sites. Four at the most.

Twitter, by the way, is in a world by itself. Updates are called tweets. I thought it was only Rockin' Robin who tweeted. But, now thousands of people tweet. And they have, and I swear I am not making this up, tweetups. A tweetup is where twitter members (twitterers? twitterites? no wait, twits!!) get together in public meetings. I don't know if they actually talk there or if they still tweet with each other. Imagine 30 twitter folk sitting around updating their twitter profiles in 140 characters instead of talking!

Third, why does everyone think they need to be everyone's friend? I have almost 200 people following me on twitter. Most of my updates read like this: "49 days left...," "48 days left....," etc.... Of course, most of my followers have no idea what I am talking about. Yet, there they are reading it. Strange. Then I get friend requests from people who, as best as I can tell, are friends of friends, or even worse, friends of friends of friends. Why do these people care what I am doing? What do I care what they are doing? Heck, I barely care what the people I actually know in person are doing on Facebook. Why? Because I can just pick up the phone, call them and get an update.

Of course, social networking has its place. I have reconnected with people from elementary school who I would not have otherwise met. That part is cool.

So word to the wise: you don't really want to be my friend on any of these things. My next update on twitter is going to tell people that I blogged about twitter and tweets. Oh, and that I find it funny.

UPDATE: Sorry, I forgot: if you are a guy, do not randomly add women who are friends of your friends. That is just creepy. See my post about the Burger King guy for a description of how creepy it is. Especially when they are under 18! Can you say felony?