Social networking

Bloggedy blog agrees with uber-blogger Dave Weinberger that social networking tools (ASN -Artifical Social Networks) isn’t his cup of tea.
A scheme is a scheme no matter how it’s packaged and a new word has sprung up:

snam. It’s short for “social network spam” — those annoying, impersonal messages from social networking services like orkut, the “online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends.”

Why would people pay for or use an ASN when email, messenger, wiki, game site chats and blogs are available? ASN’s are springing up like weeds. Wienberger says:

First, they attempt to recreate our social network by making us be explicit about it. But our social bonds are necessarily implicit. Making social relationships explicit uproots them, distorts them and can do violence to them. Just try describing your child to someone, with your child in the room.

Second, ASNs make us be precise about that which is necessarily messy and ambiguous. This not only leads to awkward social moments (Am I a friend yes-no of some person I met once and don’t know if I like?), it also reinforces the worst idea of our age: The world is precise, so our ambiguity about it is a failure.

Third, they inculcate the stupid belief that relationships are commutative. LinkedIn is especially guilty of this. I have been C in a five-term series that A initiated in order to contact E, which means someone I don’t know asked someone I marginally know to introduce him to someone I kind of know who maybe knows someone I don’t know at all. The formal name for this is “using people.”

Grieving
My deepest sympathy goes out to Rachel Cunliffe of creed and to her family.
Her grandfather passed away yesterday.

The amazing thing? I woke up in the middle of the night, wide awake and knew Grandad had died – and felt peace. I knew the phone would ring first thing this morning. The same thing happened, independently to Regan. And to my Mum.

Missed a lot
Neale News is a Canadian news site that I’d grown quite fond of, and late last week I clicked over to find out it was no longer operational. Apparently I was far from the only one that missed Brian’s site. It’s baaaccck.

It is never ok no matter how it’s said
Hate crimes have escalated in the Toronto Metropolitan area and Ranting and Roaring has been speaking out and keeping track. Now the hate has escalated into email campaigns.

The recent vandalism of Jewish houses, synagogues, and tombstones is mind-boggling, said Bernie Farber, executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region.

“I’ve never seen it like this. It’s an unprecedented, sustained on-going assault,” Farber said.

“I don’t recall such an increase in my 20-year career. No rock should be left unturned (finding the perpetrators.)”

Nationally, anti-Semitic activity — including violent acts against persons — was up 27% in 2003, with 584 cases reported, said Anita Bromberg, human rights co-ordinator at B’Nai Brith Canada.

Of the 584 cases, 315 occurred in the GTA.

I’m not going to make the A list
Great blogging rant on a Shirkeys Law bloggercon discussion by a klog apart. Essentially Clay Shirkeys theory about blogging is that distribution of attention is heavily skewed toward the top weblogs, known as the A-List.

First, reading blogs is a zero sum game. Each person on earth has only so much disposable attention. Every content publisher competes for that finite pool. It’s not the blogosphere, of course, but the entire mediasphere and the real world fighting for attention.

The very popularity of weblogs and their ease for new entrants means that our marketplace for attention becomes more efficient. Like any nearly efficient market, overall rents (profits distributed) average toward zero. In an attention market, that means you may get your shot at the big time, but your content had better meet some niche’s needs superbly or you’re toast.

I don’t think most bloggers (a couple of million of us) care much what Harvard whiz-guys have to say about blogging. I think most of us discover it and do it because we enjoy it in the most simple ways possible.
I enjoy a good blogging rant.
You mean to say that readers will find your blog and stick around if you have good content?:^)
I think when you started blogging plays a factor, it’s a lot more difficult to get attention that it was two years ago. Using the neighbourhood bar analogy, we readers gravitate toward what is comfortable and to where we’ve been before.

Getting my attention
I’ve been thinking about role models in blogging lately – about who mine are and what they offer that I think is worth emulating. Have you ever thought about your blogger-models?

St. Blog’s
Cool. St. Blog’s gets a nod and a look from The Revealer.

Paulson and Steinfels are both brilliant reporters. When it comes to Catholicism, they’re two of the most knowlegable journalists in the secular press. So what does it mean that both consider St. Blog’s Parish outside their beat?

Paulson was quick to note that the internet had transformed the grumblings of a few into the revolt of many, as the laity formed online communities to trade information about abusive priests, but he was speaking primarily of email; St. Blog’s, he said, was not as influential.

Steinfels, meanwhile, said he had never been to “this St. Blog’s site.”

So The Revealer wonders: Just how big is St. Blog’s? And how much does it matter to the future of the Church? This is not just a question for Catholics, but for all bloggers — can blog communities genuinely challenge or transform real-world communities? Or are they simply steam valves for malcontents, exhibitionists, and know-it-alls? Discuss.

Shakespeare’s blog
This has to be really difficult to write. It would drive me nuts in about five minutes, I have trouble with modern english! Accck. I can’t even think of how to tell you to pop over and ‘take a look’ in old english.
link via Redwood Dragon