Social Networking was all the rage, for like what, 10 minutes?
Well, the early adopters have had enough.
Increasingly I’ve begun to feel the same way about the various social
networks. How many networks can one person join? How many different
identities can one person sanely manage? How many different tagging or
photo-uploading or friending protocols can one person deal with?
Recently Gary McGraw echoed Ben Smith’s 1991 observation.
“People keep asking me to join the LinkedIn network,” he said, “but I’m
already part of a network, it’s called the Internet.”
The story has many like it, where hyper-networked and bleeding edge social media types talk about getting burnt out on all the efforts to stay connected that are available on the web.
There's just one problem. Most people still don't know what social networking is. Even when you tell them it's sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Part of the problem is technology is moving so quickly that the gap between the haves and the have nots is huge. The more you know, the faster the change, and the more impact it has on your life. The success, or somewhat success of Twitter is a perfect example. Twitter is one-line blogging. That's it. One line posts to give connections a sense of what you're doing every minute of the day. Just because it's fascinating doesn't mean it's not weird and counter productive.
So for those who fear the end of blogs, social networking and social media, let me pull you back from the precipice.
Two years ago - the blogerati were yapping about how over the term Web 2.0 was. They were tired of hearing it, and said it represented a bubble.
Today - most people still don't know what Web 2.0 means. The problem is not the public, but the desire to be unique and the ability to publish information. We have access to more data than ever before, and the self-anointed tip of the spear marketing people haven't learned to use the tools we have to make money. Slow down - focus on a few things you do well, and that fatigue will go away.
Social media is just getting started. It's too early to start saying it's over.