Don�t be my friend

Don�t be my friend - please!

February 21, 2008 | Internet Marketing

Facebook-types are turned off by too much advertising on social-networking sites - one reason the amount of time the average person spends on a social-networking site has dropped 14% over the last four months, according to comScore. Did we just hear the death-knell of Web 2.0?

A great and timely article by George Simpson on MediaPost as he writes:

Did we just hear the death-knell of Web 2.0? Probably not, but I think we are seeing a divide between those who have a life and those who invent a life online. You don�t have to be in freshman-level Psych 101 to understand the attraction of living the �enhanced� electronic life, where there is little nuance and no accountability for truth, accuracy or intent. Online, you can be the wizard behind the curtain wielding power that you haven�t earned and do not deserve. A cottage industry is already growing up around �managing� negative information posted by the previously powerless so that it doesn�t show up high in Google searches.

Like you, I get a half a dozen invites a week to join this social net or that one, and like you I have joined a few only to quickly let them die because I have a life and can�t spend it responding to questions from folks I hardly know�or, like Mr. Gates, don�t care to know. I frankly don�t care who just wrote what on someone else�s Wall or who just joined the Carbon Foot Print Group. And if I ever get a notice that someone I hardly know bought a shoe or a book, I will stick my hard drive in the Kitchen Aid and hit the puree button.

I see my kids spending countless wasted hours on social networks of all kinds keeping up with the minutiae of their friends� lives. I understand that knowing what everyone is wearing to school on Dress-Down Day is vital intelligence to a 12-year-old, but little has crossed my social nets that is anything approaching vital. I suppose if I had a hobby other than annoying my friends by randomly inserting them into this column, then I might enjoy being part of an online community of people who also did something other than annoy their friends.

Get the full story at MediaPost