Pardon the rant here, but this is something I would like to get off of my chest about ’social networking’ sites.    I’m one of the biggest of the ‘web 2.0 consumers’ (read: addicted to beta sites) I can think of, but honestly none of them have done me REAL good, save for a few.  I don’t want to join a site to communicate with people I already know, I want to meet new people, I want to get new contacts, etc. 

Right now the biggest ’social’ sites that benefit me are forums and IRC chat rooms.  I have met far more valuable contacts inside of community websites and IRC chatrooms than I have EVER met in a social network.  As a testament to the power of social networking in age old technologies like IRC, this entire website exists because of #ubuntuforums on Freenode.org.  Some of my favorite people to talk to have come from that channel, and that’s what social-sites are about. No social networking site has done that for me, ever.

Perhaps it’s time to start looking past the network, maybe it’s time to start building engaging communities.  Special interest groups in places like Myspace and Facebook are just thin, and pointless, no one converses in them.  Being part of “Ubuntu Users” in Facebook is like having a pretty ribbon saying you’re an Ubuntu user, it doesn’t connect you to people because they don’t talk.  Go to the cafe on UbuntuForums and you’ll be in for a treat of conversation, people with similar interests getting together and talking, promoting new software, sharing ideas, and THAT is what the social web is about.  Why is it, then, that age old methods like forums and IRC continue to be better methods for meeting new people and getting involved with them than social sites?  That highlights a problem.

You know what would be useful to me?  A site that connected me to communities, and friends.  I would spend an eternity on a site where I could have an engaging conversation with someone who has a similar interest.  I think I would probably have an e-gasm if vBulletin ever added the social tools I have in sites like Myspace and Facebook, that would be perfect.

Build me a site that is about socializing and making new contacts, and then give me the tools to make those contacts worth something to me.  Give me a way to link into other services that are useful to me, like Streamy, Scrybe, Del.icio.us, or even e-mail.  Give me an address book like Plaxo to import my network whether or not they’re a member of your site. 

In short, redundancy sucks and I don’t need new ways to talk to my friends, give me a place where I can make new ones, and keep in touch with my old ones.

Rant Over.  Flame On.

- Adam.