True Social Networking

After reading the new Twitter Status regarding their yet another attempt to fix the follower and following counts and talking with my good friend Erica over Twitter, I began to wonder, what is social network exactly?

Course, we all know of the social network sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and even Bebo. But what does true social network actually mean?

Thinking that my friends over at Common Craft never have let me down before. I went on over to their YouTube page hoping to find an answer to my social network question. (Common Craft are the awesome people who take complex subjects like RSS feed and the US presidential election and turn them into three-minute videos in a language that anyone can understand)

And sure enough, Mr. Lee LeFever already thought of putting up a social network video on YouTube:



But really...somehow that still don't tell me what TRUE social network brings to the people that I don't know and whether or not that brings people closer together.

Some say they do bring people closer together...but how, with more than 100k followers on Twitter, do you really know all of them? You can't possibility know ALL of them on a personal basis. And if it's impersonal, what's the point of bringing people closer of they're not "closer" and you don't know them as a person, rather than just a number on your follower chart? Then, in turn, what is the point of having social networks?

Like I told Erica, balancing between true social network, keeping people closer AND know them on a personal level can be a hard thing to do. If that's the case, I don't want to be part of the social network anymore. In fact, I think I already zoned myself away from the "social network" trend.

Just another social network

As you can see from this screen shot of this other social network I belong to, I "only" have 72 friends. I've even been laughed at and scolded at by others how many friends I DON'T have and now much of a "loner" I am. And my natural response is...

"I know all 72 friends by a first name basis, where they live, what grade their in, and even how many pets they have. Tell me, can you do that with your 4000 'friends'?"

Their response:

Silence

So after all this, I think those who wish to start "social networking" should ask themselves one question. Do you want to join social network or do you want to join a TRUE social networking?

And you, the one who already are part of the Tweetaholics Anonymous, what's YOUR response to that question?