Whats the buzz?

I don’t know anything about social media apart from visiting some mediacamps.

I don’t have a website and I have never blogged in my life. Yeah can you imagine!!!

My academic background is mainly sociology but I wouldn’t call myself a sociologist in the pure sense. I have a PhD on hold and so it has been for a couple of years. My main professional career has been consultancy in project management. I am also a sound engineer and musician on a semi-professional level.

I am on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Secondlife etc. but I never use them. I can’t find the point to use them. I have been surfing around last week to check so-called social media freaks sites. They have a new blog almost every day but do I find any comments on their blogs?  No, not very often.

Are all this people sitting and writing stuff for themselves?

I went past an Internet cafe the other day and saw about a hundred people sitting in nice aligned rows silent checking, writing in their so-called “social networks”.

Shouldn’t it be called asocial media or anti-social media?

Don’t get me wrong. I am interested to plug in to this “world”.

What have missed?

What is the big news everybody is yelling about in these communities or on their blogs?

Has really something changed since the quote from Frank Zappa?

“The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows”.

Please give me comments on this one. I want to hear your thoughts around it. If you can explain to me and get me on the boat we could probably get a lot of more people on board.

Ok now I have to go and feed my goldfish (maybe I should write that on Twitter so everybody knows…).

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June 27, 2008 | Filed Under Kristian Eliasson 

Comments

6 Responses to “Whats the buzz?”

  1. Gavin Heaton on June 27th, 2008 7:22 am

    Social networks are not actually about the technology, but about people and the connections that are made possible through the technology. As you say, you don’t see the value in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn — yet you have invested very little in them. Are you expecting someone to seek you out … and if we do so, what will we find? A cursory search reveals largely blank profiles.

    Blogs and other social networks allow us (or perhaps dare us) to reveal ourselves. Only those that give of themselves openly (and honestly) allow others into their digital world. This is “participation” — and in exchange for your involvement, others will engage with you. Unfortunately this means that you cannot understand social networks without “diving in”. You cannot simply look in through the glass.

    Try it for a few weeks. What have you got to lose?

  2. Jo on June 27th, 2008 7:38 am

    I think you have hit the nail on the head: you talk about the goldfish if you want someone to talk to you about your goldfish. Did you want to discuss your goldfish? I don’t have a goldfish but the neighbor’s cat makes my house it owns. I can safely say though that she doesn’t steal fish. At least he doesn’t steal mine. She prefers ham and mustard - preferably hot mustard.

    What did people do before they twittered and tweaked etc.?
    a) They listened to broadcasts
    b) They read authoritative accounts
    This is the sociology of it all.

    The new readwriteweb exposes BS fast. Not reliably or consistently or with authority, but fast.

    Two days ago, the Guardian published an article by Morgan Tsvangirai that a) he didn’t write and b) mis-represented his views. The Guardian! Shock dismay - the world is falling apart! No. It has always been like that. Just now we know within hours. The sociology is about the change in power structures.

    Of course, it doesn’t stop everyone else publishing their BS, and trying to get a view across by shouting.

    The quantity of BS about is tiresome and sometimes barf-making. But that is the flip side of “droit de seigneur”.

    What you said about people twittering away in cafe’s is like what people said about seeing a women on their own in the 1920’s. What no man? Must be deprived.

  3. Jo Jordan on June 27th, 2008 8:21 am

    Gavin’s reply is more user friendly than mine!

  4. Robert Ballantyne on June 27th, 2008 9:01 am

    It is not about computers, it is about people connecting with people. I wrote about why to do it and about the advantages before all of this social networking was based on the Internet.

    It is not taught in school, and before the Internet programs, it was not even intuitive. Your network can be trivial, but it has the potential contribute hugely to your life.

  5. Jo Jordan on June 27th, 2008 12:00 pm

    OK Kristian, I think I have an example you will like.

    Three months ago when we were watching the first Zim election, someone casually let drop that the bank notes (the one’s that say 1bn 500m, etc) that are replaced sort of monthly now are supplied by German printers Giesecke Devrient.

    People were trying to do things to help Zim. and that included sending letters of protest, translating into other languages etc. So German speakers took up that cause.

    The printers weren’t interested and stonewalled us. But we’ve been chipping away at this and bringing it up on the mainstream newspapers.

    And then the newspapers picked up the story - not accurately - they are never accurate but people fear The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, etc.

    Then the German government got involved. Now protesters in Germany are involved. And now we hear World Bank sort of sanctioned this . .

    Without fresh crisp banknotes the Zim govt would have fallen a long time ago. The way it worked was I send home 100 pounds. My relative changes that into funny money at one rate. An official who has “permission” to buy foreign currency can now use funny money to buy up forex at a different exchange rate. The officials were buying new mercedes benz for 25 pounds. Yes Germany again!

    And the funny money is also used to pay the goon squads.

    Without the money, no one would support the regime. It would be inconvenient for the populace to have no local currency but they would figured something out. And the thuggery and pillage would slow down dramatically.

    How was this fought? With emails, blogs, comments. It’s not Facebook for sure - it is always anonymous - you don’t want the goons visiting your relatives. People laughed. They said it wouldn’t work. It does!

  6. Robert Ballantyne on July 2nd, 2008 11:45 pm

    When I wrote the comment above, I didn’t mention how easily an issue with a rebate from Tigerdirect was resolved when I wrote about it in my blog (about the Salish Sea at http://howesound.wordpress.com/).

    Actually when I related the situation I was not trying to be confrontational or to seek a remedy. Nevertheless, it was managed at the highest level at Tigerdirect and OnRebate. The entire story is related at http://howesound.wordpress.com/2007/08/11/i-was-a-sucker-for-a-tigerdirect-rebate-scam/

    There are several lessons here, but it is probably best to review the anecdote and create your own learning. Since this is easily found with an online search, the story and the contacts that are listed may help others in the same situation.

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