I’ve really been torn of late as to whether or not social networking actually works. I mean, I know it works, people are out there using sites to connect – but is it worth it? I finally gave up on Classmates. After 7 or 8 years on that site I’ve been contacted once or twice – and they wanted me to pay in order to respond. That’s just ridiculous. I also gave up on MySpace. I don’t know why it took me so long, but I finally realized that site sucks beyond belief for anyone over the age of 14.
So I actually deleted my accounts, and decided to move on to greener pastures. One friend pulled me into LinkedIn, which might be some sort of Ponzi scheme, but at least I haven’t lost anything yet. Seriously, if I’m in the market for a job sometime down the line, it’s probably a good place to start. I should probably take a look at it as I look for another SA at work, too. Since I haven’t been looking for business contacts that much, my profile has stagnated at a rather pathetic 10 connection… oh well.
On the social side, I’ve been playing around with Facebook just like everybody else. Hey, if you’re coming to this blog for cutting edge tech, you’re coming to the wrong place. My profile ain’t exactly thriving over there, either, but I have made contact with a couple old friends already. All of the bombing and pirate attacks can be a tad annoying, so I still have to figure out how to wade through the cruft to just get the good stuff.
Regardless, it’s paid off multiple times. Most recently, one of the other contestants from my first day of Millionaire taping (she’ll be on tomorrow) found me and we’ve been able to exchange a few messages. Then I connected to another one of the contestants (he went on Friday and carried over today) through her.
I lost interest in trying to remain completely private on the Internet the first time I wanted to share anything real about my life. It’s more a matter of trying to control what information gets out there. And when it comes down to it, I like having enough information out there so people from my past can re-connect – and having something like a Facebook profile makes that much easier. Try Googling “Thomas Slattery” – I doubt this site is going to be anywhere near the top. But social networks give a more refined search method when it comes to people.
I dunno, maybe I’m just babbling. Actually, at this point I’m just fishing for more people to be my friend – 14 people? That’s just sad…