Social networking sites. Do you remember a time without them? That’s like saying do you remember life without TV, mobile phones, or the Internet. The fact is unless you’re a logger living in a wood hut in Alaska – and I mean way out deep in the Alaskan wilderness with only grizzlies and grass to keep you company – you are probably signed up to Facebook, aSmallworld or Twitter. Or Bebo, LinkedIn, Myspace or some other site with a name that makes you feel like you’re somebody, like you’re famous, like people know you and want to know you and the minutiae of your life. I mean the latest statistic has Facebook as bigger than the United States in terms of individual memberships. That’s over 350 million people all chattering away electronically over the web and cellular networks. Hold that thought, I’ve just realised Facebook is a country, a living, breathing entity, heck why do we even live in a real flesh and blood nation, can we sign up to be plugged in permanently and use avatars to communicate all our needs. Why do we need bodies at all?! Twitter can’t be far behind in terms of numbers and aSmallworld, used to be small but is growing at a fair old rate.
But let’s stop the rant there a second. Let’s accept that the world is changed forever and that social networking sites are the communication tool of the here and now and probably the future and that’s just how it is – we use them on our desktops, laptops and increasingly on our mobile smart phones. This is the Cool Issue of Bespoke magazine and the question we are addressing today is are social networking sites ‘cool’ – specifically Facebook, aSmallworld, and Twitter. Now you might argue the question is redundant in any case as just being a member of one of these sites doesn’t define how cool you are – 1. If everyone is on them they are not cool as there is nothing special about your membership. 2. Surely you are cool because of who you are, your attitude, the way you hold yourself, basically your individuality. Your life in the wireless cloud is not your real life so it’s not really cool. 3. In fact wouldn’t you be more likely to respond “That’s so cool” to someone who turned around and said “Social networking sites? Nah, mate. I don’t do ‘em. I’m off grid, me. Totally disconnected. Don’t even use credit cards, just cash, know what I mean!?” I probably would.
But sadly I am not off-grid, no that’s not me. I am signed up to Facebook, Smallworld and Twitter and I use all three prolifically.
Let’s start with the behemoth of the bunch, Le Facebook mes amis. I use it to stay in touch with friends and acquaintances from around the world, voyeuristically dip into their lives, those friends who use it to post information, anyway, get invited to events (quite handy) and even promote my own events, or writings and so on. That’s pretty much it. It’s really helpful for my purposes and gives me one place where I can connect with literally everyone I know, socially and professionally. I can’t imagine being without it these days just as I can’t imagine life without my iPhone which I use predominantly to access Facebook, aSmallworld and Twitter – it’s that instant communication broadcast, effectively to the world, that is totally addictive. (As an aside does being permanently joined at the hip with my iPhone make me cool by the way? My partner would argue it makes me socially and mentally deficient!) So Facebook is cool because of what it enables me to do, but it definitely feels a little like Microsoft Windows software these days as opposed to Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard when it goes up against Twitter.
Twitter is a site that gives you 140 characters to post anything you wish to say out there to the world and to your followers specifically. It is short and sweet and like Facebook’s status updates and, in a move that was clearly uncool, Facebook recently had to adapt its site to have constantly changeable, viewable updates like Twitter – uncool because it had to copy to compete (though of course Facebook does much more than Twitter). I have two accounts on Twitter (follow me now on twitter.com/ramsayshort and twitter.com/3rdwrldrevolution) and access the site from iPhone for the most part. I have about 100 followers on Twitter (I have about 900 friends on Facebook and about a third of that on aSmallworld) and I tweet on music, politics, words etc… Some of what I say is cool, I suppose, if you think I’m cool. Some of it is pointless blurb. Not sure if it makes me cool. Probably not! But Twitter itself allows you to follow the minutiae of others lives – including famous people which is cool, or not, depending on whether you really think what toyboy Ashton Kutcher has to say is remotely interesting. Better though is the fact that I use it like a RSS feed, where I can follow news organisations and get all the latest headlines in a few words immediately on my phone, or follow new music. That’s cool in my book. Being an intrepid traveller I have also taken a weekend break to Paris and used Twitter as my realtime guidebook to the city by tweeting for cool places to eat and drink and getting responses from local Parisians who know the best joints in town. Brilliant!
Which brings me onto aSmallworld. You have to be invited to aSmallworld by other members and then you build your network of people across the globe. It markets itself as the more exclusive site where not just anyone can join but people who are somebody, who are worthy can join, high end humans to put it another way, which in a way by it’s very exclusivity makes it cool. If you are invited to join you must be cool to be part of the club! It is definitely slicker than Facebook and different from Twitter. It offers a similar service to Twitter in that I can use it for travel trips and forums and arrange to meet other aSmallworld members in towns when I visit them, for example. I can also buy and sell items on aSmallworld, (even property), post pictures and so on, and hunt for jobs or use it to post jobs that I need filling – and expect to find the right calibre of job and the right calibre of applicants. These are all pretty cool attributes. Does it feel exclusive – that would make it cool if exclusivity is cool – for instance? Yes in a way, but it’s not really, as it has to grow its population as a business model to keep advertising and promotion and generate revenue. I have met cool people on aSmallworld though which is cool I suppose, and as a site it’s slick to look at and use, definitely the Rolls Royce of the lot. Does that make it cool?
In the end the question of which social networking cool is up to the individual. For my friends and colleagues, it’s neither cool or uncool that I am on Facebook, Twitter, and aSmallworld. It’s just something that in today’s world to keep up, to keep your finger on the pulse, you simply can’t afford not to be on.
Unless that is you are a logger living in a wood hut way out deep in the Alaskan wilderness with only grizzlies and grass to keep you company…
