Social, semantic, 2.0, 3.0, what is the web these days?

The brilliant boys over at Freakonomics put together a group of top minds to debate the benefits and challenges of social networking. Why has social networking exploded?

Some possible reasons:

Reason 1:

Social networking changes the way business is done. I am currently doing some consulting work for a web start-up. They are two young guys with a very interesting idea. How did I meet them? One of them showed up as part of my fraternity networking group on Linked In. I was interested in his company because I am seriously considering leaving mine. However, they have not received funding yet and aren't realy sure how to seek it. I have given them advice and pointed them in the right direction, but at the end of the day they need a veteran to help them through. I am not in a position to lead that charge for them. However, I knew the perfect guy. I used Linked In to introduce them. They've had a very productive meeting and my veteran friend is most likely going to sign on with my young friends in a mentoring-interim CEO capacity to help them through the funding process. Before Linked In was a story like this possible? No, because it is unlikely I ever would have met the young entrepreneur.


Reason 2:

A serious desire to connect with other people in an increasingly hostile world? It is harder and harder to make friends the older you get and I think it is a daunting task at any age once puberty hits. Social networking gives people the ability to reach out there and find people they really have common ground with, allowing them to connect on a different level than normal. Normal being, "I work with this guy and he isn't a complete ass so let me go to lunch with him." Occasionally those relationships turn into real friendship. Most of the time they disappear as soon as one or the other changes jobs.





Are there more reasons? Yeah, without a doubt, but these are two big ones in my opinion. I started to write this post a long time ago about how fragmented society has become and how that is hurting television ratings. What I am starting to realize is social networking is becoming as fragmented as society at large. MySpace rose, and then Facebook, Friendster, Linked In and more and more. It has gotten so crazy someone started a social network search engine called YoName.

Look at all the networks it searches:










26... I am pretty dialed in webwise and I haven't heard of some of those. I am 100% sure that isn't all of them, because one of my favorites is Ning, and Ning is not included on the list.

What does any of this mean? I am really not sure, but when looking at sociological interactions of the human race, social networking is a very interesting twist in the way we touch each other.

No 1 of Consequence

Since the first post was kind of a cheat...

... and I am way more interested in posting than I am in working, I will give you a second post today.



For those of you that talk to me regularly you probably know I am a big fan of a book called Freakonomics. It is a well written, down to Earth take on some real world issues and gives you different ways of looking at them.



Here is a very quick example of some of the contentions of the book:

Roe v Wade was actually responsible for a significant drop in crime in the US.

Measuring teachers and school districts on the results of standardized testing leads to teacher cheating.

Reading to your child has little or no impact on their intellectual development, but having a lot of books available does.

Without reading the book none of that information means anything, but I was trying to whet your intellectual whistle a little bit. Read the book. It will teach you something, either about the world or about yourself. One thing it helped me with was asking the right questions when confronted with a situation.



Overall the book really trained me to ask the question, "Is this information relevant to the topic at all, or should I be looking for different information." It is a GREAT way to tune your personal BS filter.



Be that as it may I am writing this post for two reasons. First, I suggest everyone read this book. You may reject everything in it as hogwash and you may decide the questions the authors end up asking are wrong, but I guarantee you you'll be thinking about the book long after you are finished reading it. Secondly, I want to let you know that the authors, in association with the New York Times have a blog. It becomes severely pretentious at times as these guys do get wrapped up in themselves. Overall, however, it is a brilliantly written, thought provoking blog and it will give you something very interesting to think about almost every day.





Check it out It is a daily read for me.





No 1 of Consequence

***EDITOR'S NOTE*** I know I wrote about this about a month or two ago, but I didn't feel like I gave it the attention it deserved. So for the second time today I am cheating you out of real content. Bad No 1!! The Freakonomics blog has also been linked on the sidebar for all eternity.

Look out time management

One challenge I face being an abnormally inquisitive person about the world at large is that I will occasionally suffer a massive time drain to something I find compelling. This puts me behind at work and that causes me serious problems. This doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I am in terrible danger of it happening today. The guy's who wrote Freakonomics have a blog. I did not know this before today. I am in danger of losing the whole day reading it. I must be discliplined. I must be disciplined.

No 1 of Consequence