Social Networks: Making Connections

The three social networks explored included three I'm somewhat familiar with, and have used (albeit, some briefly) in the past. These networks are Facebook, Myspace, and Livejournal.

Of all these, personally, I find Facebook the most appealing. For the past few years of its existence, the more professional-looking interface, the much cleaner layout drew me to it over Myspace. Wow, I hated Myspace. I couldn't go to any of my friends' profiles without being bombarded by a cacophony of simultaneous auto-playing embedded music combined with the latest flash games and "funnny must seee" YouTube videos. My eyes are, at the same time, being assaulted by a misshapen, overly-compressed JPEG image as a background, with a font face and color that proves to be entirely unreadable. That's alright, though. Anything important would have undoubtedly been in big flashing GIF images.

This is changing, however. With the somewhat-recent launch of Facebook's application API, it has somewhat opened the door for the Myspace-ization of the site. People can not only already add music, videos, and old NES video games to their profiles, but one can also, just like on Myspace, show the world the friends they like most. Clutter is great.

The functionality of Myspace and Facebook are largely the same, and undoubtedly, the forerunners of the social networking craze. When someone says "social networking", Myspace and Facebook are what immediately come to mind. Built for networking first, and blogging/photos/sending virtual alcoholic beverages second, these represent social networking in its purest, most unadulterated form.

Honestly, though, I'm not sure how anyone navigates Myspace. Even if you can somehow stumble through the clashing, cluttered layout, nobody enters any real information about themselves into their profiles, so finding people in a directory search is nigh impossible. This is actually manageable with Facebook, though. Facebook has extremely strong and useful search features, which is another reason why I actually care to use the site.

Livejournal is... different. A community not founded on ranking friends in order of preference, or reposting the same "SEND THIS 2 ALL UR FRIENDS OR U WILL DIE TOMORROW THSI IS NOT A JOKE" bulletin, it represents what I believe is a slightly less active community, but one that retains a much greater sense of dignity, and maturity.

They are, essentially, blogs. With a friends list. One puts far more thought into a blog post than a Myspace bulletin. They're far more permanent. One "networks" through subscribing to other blogs, which aggregate in an RSS-like fashion in a "friends" page.

One interesting thing I've found in my limited, but nevertheless existent Livejournal experience is that it has a much higher occurrence of networks of friends in where few members actually know others in real life. Livejournal friend networks frequently stem from a common interest, or thread, where online friendships are built, offering others insight into their lives through their blog postings. Fascinating. I know.

This may seem like a lot of praise for Livejournal, though, it never really caught on with me. Perhaps it was the simple lack of my friends using it (thus necessitating finding people I don't even know and will never meet to network with), or just the dead silence and sterility of it, but I, sadly, abandoned my Livejournal not long after creating it. Years later, it sits quietly, stagnant but resolute, faithfully awaiting my return, which most likely will never occur.

...I don't have the heart to delete it.