Social networks

There are things I like about social networks. I like having contact with people I have not seen for ages on facebook. I like hearing about their lives now and looking at pictures of their kids. I do not like getting messages and emails from them too often. I do not like the feeling, sometimes, that I am being stalked. Like all these htings I played it obsessively for a couple of weeks and then got bored. I like some of the applications - playing scrabulous or D&D is fun - though no more fun than playing them on game sites.

I guess you could define some of the gaming sites as social networks. I have played backgammon with some lovely people over the years and round the world!

I think Ning and Bebo could be really useful for clubs, groups and even families - a space on the internet that reflects an actual relationship and interactions. In fact, I think that is what the social networks I like have in common - they are expressions of existing relationships. One creates a ning group with people who know or interact with each other, and you do not invite strangers to be friends in FB (though it is a bit close to that with the young!).

Second Life, however, is a totally invented world, with pretend interactions between pretend people. This seems fine to me if it is a game - I remember discovering a MUD years ago (I got to it through Gopher so it was really years ago, pre www) and the excitement when I realised that it was a real person I was interacting with. WOW and the other RPGs are pretty much extensions of this. I do not really see what people get out of Second Life, however. Nothing much seems to happen except for commerce and blah. Maybe I have never given it long enough, but I got bored and did not come back. Club Penguin seems much the same and more fun!

Bebo could be great for bookclubs, or networks of bookclubs, for local studies groups, for individual branch libraries - though it would mean letting go of control in a way that most libraries are adverse to. I have qualms about libraries in Second Life - rather like the librarian coming up and being buddy to the students in the pub. I don't think they want it!