Comments on: Of numbers and friends.

By: Arthur

Arthur — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:00:44 +0000

Thanks for dropping by Amy.

I remain a dedicated OWC member. I am just spread too thin to carry out OWC Administrator duties properly.

By: mydailywine

mydailywine — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:52:28 +0000

Hey Arthur, Intriguing post that explores ideas I often think about. LinkedIn and OWC are of interest to me while Facebook does not usually. I think that is because there is a common interest amongst my OWC and Twitter gang ( wine) and facebook for me is just time sucking friends from high school.
Sorry to hear you will not be involved with OWC anymore?
You are a valuable part of the online wine community, no matter where you apply your time.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:01:32 +0000

You might want to look at Multiply.com. It’s structure is setup more for maintaining close contacts you want to have. Not a ton of request from those that find you or your business concept interesting and are just wanting to, as you put it “Friend up.”

Will you still be my friend Authur? LOL

By: Arthur

Arthur — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:48:50 +0000

By the way, Edward, Facebook has let me reconnect with grammar school friends (from 20+ years ago). I get honestly overwhelmed by all the “gifts”, “pokes”, etc. It’s hard to keep up with it all.

By: Arthur

Arthur — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:49:40 +0000

Hi Jeff

Thanks for stopping by and posting a very thoughtful comment.
I certainly am not forsaking any of the social networking vehicles and do see them as you have elaborated here. Too bad we did not have a chance to get more “face time” in Sonoma to move closer towards the “friends” end of the social connections spectrum.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:01:33 +0000

Arthur,

Nice post. There’s a lot to chew on here.

I think inherently social networking is a platform to either:

A) Expand your social scene

B) Expand your business scene

If you’re not interested in aggressively doing either one, then Facebook or one of the other iterations may not be something that is a fit for you.

And, I’m with you, I don’t view it as an entertainment vehicle when I can spend meaningful time with people in the flesh — like family and friends.

Personally, I have numerous offline i.e. “real” friends who don’t social network and it doesn’t phase them a bit.

In my world, I count friends as people I can call in the middle of the night for help. I call acquaintances people that I have interacted with in whatever form for which I may be helpful to them or they to me.

If you view in that regard, it’s a perfectly healthy vehicle for meeting new people and that’s never a bad thing.

Take this interaction for example. You and I have fleetingly talked in person and commented on each others sites. Are you a friend? No. But, you are somebody I’m friendly with and I could email you and ask a question and ask for some doable help in some regard and I bet you would answer the bell. Likewise, I would help you, if I could. That is interesting and useful.

Jeff

By: edward

edward — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:40:11 +0000

Well said. I spend little time on face book, though I have a profile, created largely out of curiosity. I wonder in time how many total strangers I will have as face book ‘friends’. The more strangers I have as friends, the less useful the whole idea becomes. . .