The Problem With Social Networks (As If There Was Only One…)
The Problem With Social Networks:
Multiple personalities.
All of us - as human beings - have many aspects. We come in many flavors. That’s what makes human interactions so complex and interesting.
There is a Working-You, a Family-You, a Friendly-You…
More than that, for each one of these You there are different versions.
At work, you don’t behave the same with your boss’s boss and with your co-worker in the next cubicle.
With family, there is the yearly great-great-aunt’s family reunion, and the Sunday’s garden Hot Dog party with your 3 brothers and their wives and kids.
It goes the same with friends.
Then there are the places. If you’re in the street, in a theatre, in a cosy restaurant, or at home, you won’t be exactly the same.
All this is for a regular quiet life.
It gets trickier when there’s your wife’s You and that cute little blond girl you met at work’s You…
Topics of conversation, vocabulary, plain behaviour, won’t be the same.
This guy I work with (or more precisely, I work in the same company as he), sends me an invite to be friend on Facebook.
Two choices : trying not to be rude, accepting the invite OR being consistent, refusing the invite : WE ARE NOT FRIENDS.
(I’m not talking about the networking use of Facebook - interesting thought by Seth Godin here though).
Or
This great conversations I have with my WOW guild isn’t of any interest for my wife. Worse, the more I talk about it, the more she resent it.
Or
This project I want to discuss only with my close family doesn’t concern any of my friends, even less my so called-facebook-friends.
There are a few initiative in this direction. HonestyBox is a great Facebook App, it brings something really missing.
YOu can send a message anonymously. At last, you can be something else than just polite or nice.
There are also private social networks or VIP-only social networks.
ModelsHotel is one of them. As Michael Arrington said: If You’re Not A Model, Don’t Bother Reading This.
So where is the solution ?
You can have as many social account as personalities. This can become hard to track…
You can try and set a really complex permission/privacy panel on the one and only network you choose (if it has this kind of option, today, I don’t know any that has).
Clearly these are not real options.
That leaves room for innovation…
[update 2008-02-27]: Seth Godin said it with his words (yes, they are better than mines. He is the marketing guru. Not me…).
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J’espère que le guy you work with ne lit pas ce blog il va être déçu
Les Social Network je trouve ça super dans l’idée mais je n’y participe pas (OK, j’apparai sur copain d’avant mais c’était pour voir ce que c’était, une erreur de jeunesse !) parce que ça m’emmerde !
Avoir beaucoup de copains virtuels qu’on voit jamais (en vrai) n’est pas intéressant, déjà que dans la vraie vie j’ai quelques copains que, finalement, je vois (en vrai) assez peu : manque de temps, dates jamais bonnes, éloignement géographique…
J’imagine que c’est rassurant pour pas mal de monde de se sentir entouré, aimé (éventuellement), de reçevoir des messages (la plupart du temps débiles) toute la journée et d’y répondre avec promptitude, chacun son truc.
Ce qui me dérange un peu plus sérieusement c’est le fait de mettre sa vie sur internet, de perdre le sens du mot “privé” et de laisser les droits de sa vie aux responsables de ces site, ma vie n’est pas libre de droit.