Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Social Networks And Online Friends

Jon Aquino has written a post called The Blog Is The Social Network. I found it interesting and it reminded me of a post I wrote called Online Friends. My post started an interesting discussion about online friendships.

Since that time I have met some of you and some of you have disappeared. As in real life my blogging community changes over time. I still think that dialogue is important. While it isn't necessary for you to comment here I do appreciate it. Everyone who visits here is treated equally. I may even find my way to your blog more often because you remind me of it. Long term friends know I can get sidetracked at times.

Jon brings up the point about Social Networking Services not fulfilling one's needs. I found that Tribe.net wasn't for me. I didn't like logging in just to send notes to people and discuss different subjects. Blogs give me enough interaction. ( I do enjoy the online interaction at Flickr but it is secondary to the sharing of pictures.)

I Have been thinking about my blog lately and noticing how different people comment on different posts. So I have some questions for you:


  1. Have a look at the two links above and think about your online interactions. How important are they to your blogging/online life? Has this changed from a year ago?

  2. My blog is just one of many in your various networks. Do you feel welcome when you visit? Is there anything good or bad you wish to mention (here or by email)?

Jon links to 'Small Pieces Loosely Joined' - an interesting article about the Internet. For my younger readers here is a direct link to the kids version. (So far I have only read this version and it is good.)

2 comments:

Jonathan said...

Hi Leon - To answer your question, online interactions are very important to my life - perhaps the most important and most frequent interactions I have. And online interaction is just as valid as face-to-face, in my opinion. Why not?

And the web is making online interaction increasingly powerful. I'm delighted.

Jonathan said...

A relevant article:
"Worldchanging Social Tools"
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002523.html