Social Networking

By Julian Tyler

 

 

Social networking is the future.  There is no getting around this.  You may as well get aboard before you are hopelessly behind.

 

In the future our social networks will merge with our phones (as they have begun to already) and will be the center piece of our communication functioning.  Through them we will email, call, video chat, watch television, text and dare I say virtually live?

 

Myspace was the first to really catch fire.  Myspace is the place for Entertainment types, people who want to showcase themselves, their music, etc and count profile views.  It’s a simple format that is open to flexibility, you can keep it simple or make it horribly complex and convoluted, its up to you.

 

Facebook is for the everyday person.  It’s not about putting yourself out there it is about networking with your friends, family and colleagues.  Facebook has brilliantly shown us the power and possibility of social networking; playing scrabble with your friends, posting and tagging photos viewable only by your family, fan pages, groups contact info.  Facebook is setting itself up very well in the social network driven future of communication.  Facebook offers something a little different than Myspace, it has built on Myspace but there is very much room for both.

 

People are talking a lot about Twitter these days… what is Twitter?

 

Twitter is a social networking site on which people ‘Tweet’ what they are doing.  While it seems to be stealing all the social networking thunder these days, it is not really a competition to Myspace or Facebook (except for use time of course).  Twitter is great for Politicians, entertainers, news outlets and blogs because it’s not about friends - friends are needy.  Twitter is about ‘Followers’.  If you like someone/something you follow it.  They don’t have to follow you.  This is exactly what newspapers/entertainers/Politicians want!  They don’t have to be your ‘friend’ (this can be controversial for them) they just want you to follow them. 

 

Twitter is unique though, it is bringing the true postmodern media interaction up to levels that Facebook and Myspace just were not able to.  Twitter allows people to throw their media size thoughts (140 characters) to the media as things are happening.  Because you can use a plethora of confusing tags you don’t even have to ‘follow’ someone to target a message to them… it truly is genius.  It brings people access to TV shows, celebrities and politicians like never before.  It also allows them to ‘feel out’ their base.  Because of its practicality and ability to connect it shows great potential.

 

Selected Tweet from Julian Tyler AKA ‘Mr. Postmodernistic’

 

See:  Twitter.com/JulianTyler

 

Why do I use Twitter?

 

I use Twitter for fun; nothing more, nothing less.  Postmodernism is my all-consuming obsession, and Twitter is a postmodern platform so it’s a great fit for me.  Twitter is fun for me because I’m a thinker, I’m an idea man and I love social-networking technology that allows me to vent/share.  Twittering is hard for me too because I’m a verbose unquantifiable-credible post-modernistic quasi/wannabe/willy-nilly (so on so forth) “intellectual”… see I’m already over 140 characters with that one sentence and I was just getting started…  I’m learning to say “more” with “less” but will keep: less = more.  Thanks Twitter.

 

I spout all kinds of crap, on various topics from Astrology to Zoroastrianism and blend them together and call them Postmodernism. Sometimes (occasionally) something good comes out.  I rant about shit that’s bothering me and I love my WTF’s.  Its 2009, so I’m going digital, going global, going green and tangent... I’m an ‘environmentalist’ (among others ‘it is’ but I reject all labels) so I do tend to always talk about trees and how green things are or should be.  I’m the future because I’m going strong.

 

Twitter is my forum where I store all my spew for reference and reprocessing.  So that I can later I boil it down to the ‘good stuff’ and the rest I chop up and bundle as securities to sell to Wall Street at a grossly inflated price. I give it an AAA rating but WTF do I know?

 

While I don’t think Twitter is for everyone, and there are a ton of ‘fakes’, ‘follower hungry psychos’ and sales pitchers on Twitter, there is a definite place for it, and I look forward to the future of it.  What next?  One minute video clips?