Has Social Networking Worked For You?

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Here's a question for you all - has any of this 'social networking' worked for you?

I'm talking being on Facebook, Bebo and alllllll the others ... has it worked for you?

For me it seems to have raised my profile here in Wellington amongst all my lovely techie friends but, well, that's about it. So it's worked for me in a professional sense ... a bit. Twitter was probably the most successful for me in that sense.

Other than that ... I'm not so sure.
I've re-connected with some friends back in the UK but we've not got a lot to talk about once we get passed the, "How's the new life?" and, "Heh, do you remember when we put pepper on the stove of Jo's part?!?"

I have read a lot of funny articles and seen a lot of weird videos through Google's Shared Items (mine) which is probably meant it's stayed out of my InBox. That's a bonus. I also think that I have a new "stalker" view on people that means I am "connected" to them in a "I know what you did last summer" but that's very rarely lead me to actually talk with them.

I've also had a lot of my world views reinforced because I generally 'follow' (connect with, make "friends" or just plain old read) people that are like myself. I don't have a whiter supremacists on my Twitter list (I don't think), I have befriended any neo-conservatives in Facebook (probably) and I'm not listening to the same music as any non-white-suburban-living-knowledge-worker-family-types in LastFM (one or all of those). It's becoming quite self referential in a way. And if I were a neo-Nazi the same would apply ... which isn't so good, is it?

All of this may be because I am "old" and therefore don't count such connections as "real".
Maybe ...

What's you view, has it worked for you - leave a comment

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