It's All About Me

I broke no early ground in the social networking scene. In fact, my arrival at the party was rather late. It seems these new tools need to be relevant before they're used. For me, it took moving to Maryland before I stared a blog. Well, it was a Yahoo Group in June '04 and is now the blog at which you are reading.

Next, came the MySpace page. At the time, I was also collecting hundreds of friends for the WUSA MySpace page. My problem with MySpace is it's become such a haven for mindless applications, cheap profile skins, and peeps tryin' to hook up. I try to keep the page updated but only at a minimal effort.


So, when FaceBook opened to the general public after being regulated to only college students, I pounced on setting up a profile. Facebook's cleaner format, faster loading pages, and overall superior product has kept me updating my profile there.

Now, I'm Twittering. This is clearly a stretch for me. If keeping this blog updated and adding whatnots to the Facebook profile wasn't difficult enough, the value of spitting out one or two line quips about what I'm doing or thinking seems a bit self-promoting. Of course, I finally caved a couple months ago and have been enjoying it.

Whereas a Facebook or MySpace page might allow people to see galleries, videos, and other tidbits about oneself, Twitter allows people following you a glimpse into your personality. Plus, since it updates the status on Facebook, this allows for some great comments from one's non-Twitter friends. I've felt it all a bit narcissistic at times, however, these tools do really seem to bridge the gap between being able to chat with someone on the phone or in person. Plus, if you rarely (if ever) have a chance to catch up with an old buddy or office mate, these updates keep the connection current.

So, the experiment continues. But one has to think, with all this time spent on a computer or with a smart phone, how much time do we really spent "with" people verses machines? Hmmmm....