Question: Is "social networking" a worthwhile goal?
Why, or why not?
Some sub-questions:
What is it?
What does it offer? For good or bad?
What doesn't it offer?
Are the bad parts fixable?
What practical alternatives are possible?
Are there elements particularly resistant to repair, which generate frictions, or hard to replace?
Why, or why not?
Some sub-questions:
What is it?
What does it offer? For good or bad?
What doesn't it offer?
Are the bad parts fixable?
What practical alternatives are possible?
Are there elements particularly resistant to repair, which generate frictions, or hard to replace?
It depends what people want from it. IF you want groups to share say, photos, and or perhaps skills and knowledge on a range of different topics. It is great.
ReplyDeleteI like finding new people who share my interests and then talking about those interests. Google+ has been great for that. I suppose forums work too, but they're much more limited.
ReplyDeleteSocializing is good. It ties communities together, be it a neighbourhood or the world. Online socializing is just an extension of what people do naturally.
ReplyDeleteproblem is the inernet is a great playground for narcissists and sociopaths - just the kind of personalities that are most attracted to far rightwing ideologies.
ReplyDeleteI came to G+ from facebook because I wanted to converse (or simply learn) about the topics of interest to me; but facebook was about keeping in touch with those who I already knew (whether or not those people were particularly interesting to me). I found that the people who posted on topics of interest to me were (no surprise!), all-around interesting people. I follow PEOPLE in my social network, not topics per se - the topics are the entre, not the end. Interesting people acquaint me with the questions I did not know to ask, far more than the facts I could have looked up on my own.
ReplyDeleteAt the conceptual level, social networking is arguably nothing more than a means for people to meet each other and interact on the web. That is certainly worthwhile. The problems come when you try to implement a platform for doing that. They include -- but are not limited to -- the cost of building and supporting an infrastructure which can provide the service; the (unfortunate) need to moderate it because of the prevalence of spammers, trolls, and the like; the determination of existing platforms (e.g., Facebook) to protect what they see as being their domains thereby effectively sabotaging competition; and so on.
ReplyDeleteIn order to overcome some of these, a new model for people to interact with and on the web is needed which distributes cost by distributing function on the web but still allows for mechanisms that can control spammers, trolls, and the like so that they don't ruin social networking for everyone else. One has only to look at the fact that at least at one time well over 90% of the total email traffic on the web was spam to see how destructive those people can be without intervention that blocks them automatically (as Gmail and other email services do).
I don't have any answers for what the new model should be. I'm keeping an eye on Inrupt's Solid as a potential platform. Inrupt doesn't have a social networking platform at this time, but the fact that one of Inrupt's founders is Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the worldwide web, suggests that it is worth watching Inrupt very carefully.
I was told off by facebook as if I were a naughty child. That put me off somewhat
ReplyDeleteI require the ability to connect with other people, preferably in a space that is at least semi-public, because how else can you meet new people? Without the desire to share ideas and conversation with others, all I need is a feed reader. (And to be fair, my feed reader does have some small capacity for simple social interaction; it just doesn't seem to be enough for me.)
ReplyDeleteCarlo Misiak #METAQuestion:
ReplyDeleteWhat are valuable values?
Here's the thing - social networks carry with them the promise of what the internet could truly be. They allow people from all over the world to connect and exchange ideas and opinions and beliefs and facts. And for that it is certainly a worthwhile goal.
ReplyDeleteProblem being... that isn't what it is being used for right now. As is, it's kind of a place to yell at each other and for some to push others buttons to get a momentary thrill.
I am unsure if the benefits can be made to outweigh the negatives. But it's definitely a good goal to have - it's kinda like world peace... Probably unattainable in any meaningful way but a worthy goal.
Is "social networking" a worthwhile goal?
ReplyDeleteI think social media is worthwhile.
What is it?
Social media is a public space where non-technically minded people can participate in shared posts and commentary.
What does it offer? For good or bad?
It offers participants access to and participation in a wider world than would be otherwise accessible. It can be contrasted with traditional media which is mostly one-way and non-participatory. For example, library books, dvds, etc do offer a wider world, but it is almost entirely one-directional in nature.
What doesn't it offer?
Current social media is fragmented; it lacks cohesion and interoperability, although almost all of it is accessible by standard web browsers.
The reliance upon internet infrastructure makes it somewhat vulnerable to censorship and other malicious actions.
Are the bad parts fixable?
Maybe?
What practical alternatives are possible?
Everyone gets a Unix account on one humongous central server and uses the "wall" command.
But seriously, wireless peer-to-peer networking could be an alternative to internet infrastructure, passing content from peer-to-peer in UUCP style.
Are there elements particularly resistant to repair, which generate frictions, or hard to replace?
It's unlikely that any alternative to internet infrastructure would gain traction in places with good internet service.
You ask if social networking is a worthwhile goal - for many it is a means, a tool, to reach a goal,not a goal in itself.
ReplyDeleteCuan Knaggs One of the problems of social networks is... I don't know what to call it... maybe "The pack effect"?
ReplyDeleteBasically it works this way : Let's say two people meet in a room and start talking. Two people with no others watching or chiming in. Then a real discussion might be held.
But then let's say two groups of 5 people each meet and start talking. It devolves into a cacophony almost immediately and people start yelling to be heard and the louder the voices go the more simplistic their statements until it becomes two groups chanting phrases at each other.
And then here is the scary version - two people meet in a room. And one person get's to a point where they are angry and so they call in 4 other people that all gang up on the one person. And then the drowning out of discussion happens in preference to "Winning" the argument.
I don't think any of the social networks have figured out how to avoid this stuff yet.
Isaac Kuo Come to think of it, Usenet was social networking before social networking was a thing, and was probably a better model in some ways. (Nowadays you'ld sprinkle some crypto and blockchain in there). Of course, last I heard, Usenet was a ghost town of spammers and blatant copyright violations. Although maybe by now they've all moved on to the next thing and a handful of users are hanging out hoping no one will notice them...
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats At the conceptual level, social networking is arguably nothing more than a means for people to meet each other and interact on the web.
ReplyDeleteThat's a minimal definition. I'd argue that social media emphasises interactions based on some relationship, though it might be formalised and noted in data structures, or informally nudged by the architecture. There's also a user-contribution element; works, messages, and other content is created and contributed by users, not simply passively consumed.
Email lists, Usenet, and BBSes are social as defineed by space. MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and G+ added other dimensions; following, friending, Circles, Communities, Collections (interest). Variously, and often poorly supported.
One of G+'s best social elements isn't an architectural feature, but an emergent feature: people who are good conversational hosts. A conversation springs up, only vaguely represented wthin the site's design (though many such conversations emerged around its designer). Very social. But also emergent.
It strikes me that overformalising explicit relationships in data may be a design bug. Relationships happen and emerge. They're not simply specified.
Case in point: I still follow two particular profiles: Dawn Hardin and Dieter Mueller. Neither of them have posted anything in years. Not because they're lazy or have moved on to Facebook or other networks. They're both dead. Both suicides. And I can't bring myself to accurately represent the true state of that fact by unfollowing them. So my formal data state on G+ is at odds with the social reality. Behaviourally, I've had no relationship with these two profiles for years. Formally, in data, the relationship persists. Soon, Google+ itself will join Dawn and Dieter, though whether that's consided a suicide or assisted death could be debated. The continued presence of Dawn and Dieter in my profile's metadata after that passing seems an apt memorial.
Cuan Knaggs Or magazine letters sections.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius Sorry to hear of the suicides of your friends. With the end of G+, I wonder what will happen with their profiles. Will they remain, perhaps, on the Wayback Machine?
ReplyDeletearchive.org - Internet Archive: Wayback Machine
Yes, it is a worthwhile goal. But I separate it into two distinct parts: (1) my "identity" and (2) my "communities".
ReplyDeleteRegarding my identity, I would like to have a way to link all social aspects of my internet life together. I would like to avoid having multiple different profiles in multiple different sites with no connections to each other. I would like to have a way from finding others with similar interests, and for allowing others to find me which would create more cohesive real communities. I guess you could manually manage this, but it seems like unnecessary work that can be easily automated.
The G+ circles metaphor would apply here. It would allow to keep my "work" identity, my "family" identity, and my "drinking buddies" identity from unnecessarily overlapping. While still allowing my kindergarten classmates to find me, as seems to be the purpose of FB. This is where I see solutions such as Tim Berners Lee Inrupt make some inroads.
When it comes to my communities I want most of these to be heavily moderated, free of spam, topical (not just popular stuff), and keeping trolls and bullies on a very tight leash. The only practical way I see on the internet to meet this goal is via reputation/badge systems such as the stack exchange family of communities in which moderators automatically arise from the community members with no need for dictatorial human intervention.
Note that this heavy moderation necessarily means limiting "free speech", and the segregation of fringe elements of society out of the great majority of mainstream internet communities and their segregation into fringe communities. However, I see the existence of sites that cater to those fringe communities as a possible benefit to society, as long as we can have adequate policing of their content (yes, I said that).
What should it be?
ReplyDeleteWhat could it be?
What would we want it to be?
Edward Morbius I intentionally used a very minimal definition because issues such as how relationships are defined and the like are really implementation decisions. Systems get really mucked up when their architects treat some of their implementation decisions as what are effectively fundamental requirements. If you start with the simple assumption that a social networking system must provide the two basic functions of allowing people to meet and to interact, the next step becomes asking what is needed to provide those two functions:
ReplyDelete-- How should people be able to meet?
-- How should people be able to interact?
-- What kinds of relationships need to be supported?
...and so on.
The beauty of Google+ was that it mimicked real-life relationships. We don't interact with everyone the same way (e.g., Facebook friends). We interact with family differently than friends and other associates -- and each of those general types of relationships can be broken down further. Friends might include childhood friends, college buddies, co-workers, we develop friendships with, fellow bicycle riders, and so on. Of course, some people might fit into multiple types of relationships: A college buddy might also be a co-worker and a fellow bicycle rider. Google+ circles provided the means to relate to fellow Google+ users any way we wanted to.
Communities represented something else from real life: We are all members of various groups who interact based on mutual membership rather than purely individual relationships.
Collections supported the fact that most people have multiple interests and assuming everyone is interested in all of the same topics is absurd.
Providing the means for supporting relationships that Google+ in a social network is wonderful, but assuming that any of them are prerequisites for social networking is dangerous. There might be other ways of achieving the same goals and perhaps improving on them. We need look no further than Gmail to see an example of how things can be improved. Whereas early email systems were all based on the real-world models of inboxes and folders, Gmail improved on that dramatically with the concept of labels and a powerful search mechanism. That was only possible because Gmail's designers did not assume that inboxes and folders were a firm requirement for an email system. Instead, they assumed that there had to be a way of storing and then finding old emails.
There are avenues of co-operation that are served well by social media, for instance birding and wildlife photography. It's also a great tool for staying in touch with people and following interests.
ReplyDeleteImplementations like Facebook create an overload and blur boundaries of personal vs public information. G+ was a better alternative but it wasn't very personal. That's where it failed for many but succeeded very well for a few.
Nishit Dave the only reason G+ wasn’t very personal was due to critical mass. Almost everyone we know only uses Facebook. It’s not really an architectural issue.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Brown the basic design employs the Circles concept, which is an add-on for FB. Differentiating posts between public and private is much easier.
ReplyDeleteSomebody I used to work for said "The winner is the one with all the names". He could easily be described as a "Networker" in that he has a huge rolodex of business people around the world and finds ways of making money from introducing them to each other. And getting non-exec positions with their businesses. For him, Linkedin is an obvious primary resource, but the rise of Social Networks meant he could meet and interact with new people on the basis of his posts and comments.
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond The Directory matters, but moreso if it's actually used.
ReplyDeleteThe phone book has .... most of the names. It doesn't much matter.
FB has more names than LinkedIn, and they engage.
Something to remember is that "social networking" has existed almost since computer and Internet use became widespread. In the heyday of AOL, the chatrooms and bulletin boards -- yes, AOL had bulletin boards arranged by topic -- functioned as social "gathering places." F******k didn't invent this; neither did MySpace or Friendster (remember Friendster?).
ReplyDeleteI've never chatted much here, partly because I still haven't figured out how to use Hangouts. But I've enjoyed watching the discussions -- well, some of them, anyhow -- and making my own career-related posts.
#SteveDisque
Julian Bond Open and distributed identity services would solve that problem. An OpenID on steroids.
ReplyDeleteI believe that’s what Tim Berners Lee is working towards with Inrupt. If not, somebody should push towards that direction.
John Skeats Understood and I'm a fan of a minimally sufficient definition. I'll point out that my definition incorporated the idea of governing social relationship without specifying mechanism by which those relationships should be registered within systems, and noting both problems with explicitly-specified and the utility of emergent patterns in both.
ReplyDeleteThere's a large region of agreement here.
As for how G+ facilitated interactions: I used G+ almost exclusively as an interests platform. I don't have relationships here reflecting real life, and have actively acted to minimise these where they might exist (I ... never really trusted Google's intentions, either in the present or several potential foreseeable futures). The must useful interactions for me crossed the intersection of topics of interest with capable conversants. People with something interesting to say.
Some of these were domain experts. Many were not. Some of my most valuable interactions have been with people having markedly different life experiences and outlooks, often quite divergent from mine. Often simply on the basis of life experience.
And of course there were a whole slew of profiles in which I took little interest or whose contributions I found to be net negative. Those generally ended up blocked.
(I have an ... extensive G+ block list. Possibly my largest legacy here.)
It's interesting that the features that G+ ended up with that worked took quite some time to emerge, most weren't present at the start. Circles declined notably in significance. And Collections, arguably one of the best ideas of the site (though no, not original to it) arrived late and have been strongly deprecated, though they remain hugely useful.
The ability to target my posts to a specific context is ... incredibly cumbersome. Why the "post context selector" widget takes literally minutes to load and carries a great risk of crashing a browser session is ... utterly perplexing to me.
#ShitIWontMissWhenThisPileDies.
Steve Vasta Social interactions predate the Internet. The first shared computer systems had email and chat systems, back when "the network" was "the computer", with multiple users sharing the same system.
ReplyDeleteTalking to other people is what people do. One of my first online communities arose on a uni computerised library catalogue. It wasn't the fastest way of reaching others, but it was cheap, spanned a multi-campus system, with access to a total student population of roughly 100,000 or so. The userbase of which was markedly smaller, but still significant. Usenet and email existed at the time, but the notion of a shared social space was novel and compelling.
Cuan Knaggs Started, it's interesting. Whole docu is on YouTube. Nearly 5h runtime.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtube.com/watch?v=nO5vjmDFZaI
youtube.com - BBS the Documentary [Full HD]
Online social networking, how we understood it in ca. 2010 is largely dead or irrelevant (i.e. platform-mediated peer-peer interaction between people who have some meaningful offline social relations with each other). What has emerged since is social-media, where many follow a few celebrities and "influencers" and most of the successful, big platforms have pivoted there, because this is where the money is. Virtual online communities around shared interests have existed since the Usenet/BBS days and still do - among others on G+.
ReplyDeleteTo me social networking is FINDING content on topics you're interested in and socializing with people with the same interests. Before the social networks now, we had Usenet, and before that, local nets. The only real difference from the old days and now is more people are using the social networks (and w-a-y over the top, because the medium monetized fools who'll do anything for a buck -- that attracts the worst).
ReplyDelete