Andrew Leonard has written an excellent overview of the absudity of what we call social networking
and “just what a friend is” in Salon.  It’s a two part series.  Part One
featured me as some sort of weirdo, accumulating friends like I’m some
sort of lonely stalker.  Not true!  I’m really just a
software guy kicking the tires.

Andrew’s balanced assesment is pretty right on.  I would have
hoped that the “putting it into the proper
context” angle would have surfaced more, but taking all my statements at face value is cool
too.  Not to get too analytical.

It would
have been nice to dive a little deeper into the various schemes being
implemented right now and what’s possible in so far
as levels of relationship granularity.  But he covered a lot of
ground and I commend him for that.  Most social networking
articles are just republished press releases.

As long as
we apply these social networks within particular contexts – like
gaming, being Gay or within a virtual Silicon Valley – the granularity
of relationships will come.  As long as we deliver compelling experiences – the money will comes.

And as long as we realize that social networking is not an end to
itself, but yet another step up in the technology showcase of what’s
possible – we’re on the right track.

I remember just not feeling right when the era of “on-line communities’
brought us – message boards.  “Is that it?” I thought? 
“There’s got to be more!”

Well now we have blogging and social networking – what next?  Home multimedia LANs?

It’s the only way to model real-life.