Social Software as fad?
Nick Carr quotes Ryan Carson on social software:
I just don’t have time to use all of these amazing apps, and I’m guessing you might not too. I’m a fairly typical web citizen. I’m 28, married, make a reasonable wage, own a house and I have a few close friends. You’d think I’d be a web app company’s dream, but I’m not. How come? I’d love to add friends to my Flickr account, add my links to del.icio.us, browse digg for the latest big stories, customise the content of my Netvibes home page and build a MySpace page. But you know what? I don’t have time and you don’t either.
I think I have to agree with that. I started using del.icio.us about a year ago; I stopped after a few weeks, because the extra effort didn't seem worth it. Heck, I only just started using technorati tags in my blog posts recently, and I've had support for it in my posting tool for awhile.
The current mix of social software seems to me a lot like the last big fad, which centered around services like LinkedIn. Other than responding to other people's requests for a link, I haven't had anything to do with it. The bottom line is, these things take effort to use. Not tons, but effort. It's simpler to just not bother.
I'm sure that some people find these apps useful and compelling. I'm not one of them though, and I'd guess that most people aren't.
Technorati Tags: social+software, tagging
Comments
We're Not Most People
[Rogers Cadenhead] August 31, 2006 11:39:44.432
People who have their own blogs and update them frequently already scratch the biggest itch that social networking sites can reach: the desire to express yourself, form groups and communicate with them. I think that makes us a poor group to judge whether MySpace and its competitors are a fad.
MySpace...
[ James Robertson] August 31, 2006 12:21:56.292
Comment by James Robertson
Rogers,
You make a good point. I guess we'll see over the next few years.
Have you done a search?
[Konstantin Guericke] August 31, 2006 14:30:03.592
If you just accept and send invitations on LinkedIn, it could take a long time for that great business or career opportunity to find you. LinkedIn is in many ways a (people) search engine--the value you get depends on what you put into the search box: people at companies you want to talk to, people with specific expertise, recommendations, etc. On MySpace, you probab
-Konstantin
www.linkedin.com/in/konstantin
New generation arriving
[Darius] August 31, 2006 15:01:19.360
Hi James,
Do you text message your friends all day? Me neither. But we're digital immigrants. Our children are digital natives.
They make friends digitally as teens, when socializing is important, and keep them... anywhere in the world.
We don't have time to learn. They do this so much it's like daily life. Their friends teach them.
Do we have time to crack a manual or read a book? They don't. The answers (that they care about) flow to them.
I don't think it's a fad anymore than cell phones and landline phones were for us. Remember when you could actually get a second extension phone in your own bedroom and that was exciting?
Cheers,
Darius
New generation arriving
[Darius] August 31, 2006 15:05:53.519
Teens in the '50s got Sony started because they could listen to their bad influence rock& roll music away from home and parents on those cheep new transistor radio things and share that music with their friends when together. Not a fad.
Cheers,
Darius