4/25/09: The Death of the Social 4/25/09: The Death of the Social
I was recently chatting with a friend of mine who was clearly much more heated about the subject than I am, but I was glad that someone else is taking note. I may be completely understating it. It may be the case for every 20-something in the entire United States, that they go to work and hear their 50-something year old bosses talking about that new facebook or tweeter thing that everyone is on about.
And yes, I wrote tweeter, because that is exactly what everyone in my office calls it.
There is a giant movement occuring to make the social networks into business marketing networks. And it is beyond annoying. I remember when I first got into facebook. I was in Germany for the first time, away from all of my friends in 2004 and they told me about it. I was hooked like an aspiring actress on crack. I would spend at least an hour a day on that finding long lost friends and shooting the shit with my college buddies. Then I got on youtube and myspace in order to show my friends the films that I had been making. If other people stumbled across them along the way, then bonus.
Then twitter and texting became more and more popular. My second year in Germany, I rarely received phone calls, just texts. I was half to blame in each situation; they're so easy. But what does that say about us as a people, when sending a few misspelled words in lieue of actually expressing ourselves becomes the popular means of communication.
I just signed up Not Triangles for Twitter and Twitter asked me if I would like them to send me an e-mail if I fail to post a status update within 24 hours of my last one. That seems extreme.
So the first part of the death of social is that people are no longer going to be able to, or at the least, feel comfortable speaking to each other. Relationships even begin by sending text messages now.
The second part, is that this popular means of communication and all the social networking sites that emulate that idea are being overrun by organizations who see the massive profit locked somewhere deep within them.
I work in an office with a bunch of small businesses. The building owner lets me use satellite offices when I need to for free, but there is a small price. When he or his colleagues need more asses in the seats for their seminars in order for them to look good, I am the first one they come to. One day last week, I came into my office and a magazine on the coffee table was deliberately left open on a page with the creator of facebook standing alone, looking stylish and smug, and an article next to him titled "The creator of facebook, how he made millions and put Obama in the white house." Social networking and new media have been the words of the day for the last 3 months around my office. I usually play ignorant and let them talk. It's more amusing and leaves out the chance that I will become their liaison to today's culture. But later that day, the building owner popped his head in and asked what I was doing at 12:00. I said I was going home. He said, "oh so you're rushing out?" I said, "no, not necessarily, what's up?" So, he invited me to his seminar. The entrepreneur club.
When I walked in there were 4 over middle aged people sitting, looking dumbfounded, over their computers. Each one was looking at facebook and the screen at the front of the room had a giant projection of someone's friend page upon it. They were learning the internet together. Helping bump each other's friend count and expose each other's business to new networks. It was hilarious, but I sat silent. Then someone asked me how many friends I had. I said maybe 250. They all turned to me immediately with awed looks on their faces, like I held the secrets to wealth and riches within my mind.
I got out of there after 30 minutes, but not without making 'friends' with all 4 of them.
The woman in charge of the club started off by asking me my last name. I hesitated. All of the implications of opening up my 'network' to them swimming through my head. But the building owner knew my last name anyways... so I gave in. But then she had to use my assistance to find me among all the other Steven Tophams. Maybe, just maybe, our social networks will be too complicated for them to break into. Such things as searching for name and city may halt these money hungry organizations in their pursuit of ruining everything we hold dear.
What's worse is my experience can not be an isolated event. Especially if articles like the one mentioned above are written in every business publication and news rooms keep mentioning these social networks. And also because the entrepreneur club is a national organization.
It's only a matter of time before these methods of brief and impersonal interaction become standard for everyone. And it won't take that long for businesses, big and small, to have broken into them completely and have access to more information than they could ever have dreamed of back when the internet was just a young little thing.