Sunday, May 16, 2010
Social
A good article from a couple days ago that tries to reclaim the word social from Facebook. It reads, however, like someone asking us to go back to Web 2.0 (and thus the Google websearch is idealized as open, when it arguably isn't). While I myself miss Web 1.0 (that wonderful, stupid, experimental time where we had so many web pages like Homer Simpson's), this means we've probably actually really entered the age of Web 3.0, and are now realizing what it is: when all information on the web has effectively and perversely become socialized by corporations, so that it becomes something other than information--a product recommendation. Promising, though, is that we are now wondering whether the word social is being used any substantive sense by these corporations. It certianly jars with experience: if Facebook is the attempt to resolve the public/private paradox in the use of the increasingly corporatized web, it certainly doesn't seem intuitive, since its vision of what counts as interaction is so unbelievably narrow (narrower, it seems, even than networking).
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The "social" is messing with us on so many levels, but I'll pick two to respond to.
The words -- social, content, information... these are good words that have such potential for meaning "IRL," yet Facebook (and other social networks) strip any possibility of significance away from these words. Updates are considered "information," ads are considered "content," sharing private data without permission is considered "social." (I guess the meatspace equivalent of Facebook’s socializing would be talking about a private person’s affairs all over town. Such behavior is pretty socially unacceptable in most people’s “books.”) The first two words, information and content, lead social media (media! They’re mediating us) proponents to tell us things like "there is more information shared on the internet in one day than in the last thousand years" or some similar mind-boggling bull. Does anyone really want to consider all that crap "information"? More on “social”: Facebook uses verbage now (I know you’ve left so you haven't seen their latest awfulnesses) like "The more boxes you check, the more social we can make your experience." What does that even mean!? Ok we know what it means (we'll sell your info to more advertisers), but really I don't know what they even think they're trying to communicate with sentences like that. Since I have to keep a Facebook account for work, I have gone through the myriad motions to make my profile as antisocial as I can manage. And whatta ya know, my friends (as in human beings I talk to about human happenings and ideas) are still my friends. I haven’t been socially ostracized because I unchecked the mysteriously pre-checked boxes.
Probably more important than the language appropriation is the entire many-to-many, hive mind sort of idea behind what you properly identified as Web 3.0, and how we’ve forgotten what the web can do besides just make believe at being “social.” The new web (“The Next Web” as one scary site I frequent calls it, where every contributor’s interests seem to include “watching the social web monetize.” There you have it.) removes any possibility in people's minds that someone or some group might be an authority on something. Well, some humans are authorities! And the web is an amazing, quick way to share real information, to have real discussions. But because the mass of humanity that has something trivial to say, some more easily viral-ized bit of “information,” the authorities and good discussions don’t matter much anymore. And the ensuing chaos of voices makes way for new authorities – corporations – who won’t discuss anything. The internet has had its next revolution, and now the dictator has moved in (masquerading as part of the masses I guess). Facebook represents the full potential of evil made possible by the new web, but Twitter and other good old 2.0 networks don’t help much. You mentioned how the article unduly glorifies the alternatives to Facebook. I agree. While Twitter and some niche communities (Dogster, Babycenter, etc.) do have a more transparent and actually social platform, they still represent some bad things about 2.0 – the blind following the blind (Yahoo Answers…Jesus!), a haven for viral marketing (aren’t viruses bad things? People get so giddy about them these days…), and a whole lot of meaninglessness going on.
...I too am nostalgic for Homer’s web. It’s funny how we learned to use internet sources in school during web 1.0, and teachers always told us to beware all those crazies on the internet, to only look at trusted sites, and to evaluate sources carefully. Now kids use other kids as sources. I don’t know what our nostalgia can do for us at this point, except fuel resistance to the next web.
I recently attended a Social Media seminar hosted by Cbyond. I sat next to a suited Cbyond rep, probably five years my junior. It was his first job. He networked all over the place during the fifteen minute break, and asked me if I was going to do the same. I ate the free food and talked to the business people at my table. Who was more social? Anyhow, the speaker kept contradicting himself when it came to Facebook. He wanted us to be a little wary of it, yet it was a main example for how to do this or that with “social.” I think slamming Facebook has become the cool thing to do, even if you have no idea what the scary things behind it mean. What pained me the most is how he tried to tie social to SEO (Search Engine Optimization, the bread-n-butter of the internet marketing company since the ‘90s) – impossible if you use Facebook as your main social network! Mr. Cbyond couldn’t see beyond Facebook, and ended up telling a roomful of small business owners and young social marketing upstarts that Facebook will help their Google efforts. Gawd. I don’t see any end to the fleecing. I’m trying to get Facebook friends to stop following me through FB, and come to Blogger, a more real social network.
Sorry to go on for so long, but I had to share, coming from the marketing, researching, trying to get noticed side of internet usage (in my work anyway). I came across a book that looks pretty cool, written by a Silicon Valley dude who is now disgusted with the current state of the web. I don’t agree with everything he’s saying, but it’s interesting to see a tech-head turn against the monsters he helped create and to think about how many talented people put effort into this enormous thing, who are now screaming out “You’ve got it all wrong!”
You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier
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