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24 Feb 2004
Social Networking - Service or function?
Judith @ The Social Software Weblog describes FindaFreek, a social networking service for Freeks. The service is quite nice, at it allows you to enter (and search for) a complex personal profile.
It made me thinking about this social networking bubble. For me it is just old wine in new bottles. We used to have communities. In these communities people could meet and chat with each other. These communities were groups of people around a central theme. And what has social networking added? Better ways in meeting people (Foaf-like) in very large groups of people (friendster et al.). But why should I? I already hang out on dedicated communities with people whose interests I share. Why add something new? Better ways of connecting to other people is always good and I would like to have it added to any community. But why those general services? Only because it is hyped? Or because older services failed? But why did they? It is not clear to me.