Social networks, primarily FaceBook and MySpace for the younger set, and LinkedIn for business people, seem to be growing faster than home foreclosure rates. That's a good thing, or at least it will be in ten years or so.
Today, everyone is fascinated with what I call “Buddy Bling” where you race to have the most contacts. This started back with AOL Instant Messenger and the buddy list. People connect to each other and to friends of friends for business and social purposes. Does having sparkling Buddy Bling mean you have more real friends? Not to me. I'm a bit old-fashioned, since I consider the term “friend” more important than saying yes to an e-mail solicitation from someone I spoke to on the phone for three minutes.
Some complain there are too many social networks, and they're right. Usurping the famous Sturgeon's Law, “90 percent of social network activity is crud, because 90 percent of everything is crud.” Right now, we're in the middle of the crud, and we can't tell which social network, or networking model, works best.
In ten years, we'll look back and wonder why we didn't realize Net A and Net B were the obvious winners. But we need some distance. Think back to what you were doing on the Internet 10 years ago. Are you doing any more than 10 percent of those things today? Beyond e-mail and browsing?
So relax, use the network your friends ask you to use, and wait a bit. One day, in a few years, the right model will evolve and you'll already be subscribed. But more Buddy Bling today won't get you there any faster.
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