The Art of Social Networking

Facebook recently announced that it would be introducing the option to have a link on your profile's URL- it would be, according to the official blog, a way of making it easier for your friends to find you. The only problem I can see with this is that Facebook already uses people's real names for people searches, so why do they feel the need to add this feature? I think the answer's simple- to turn into MySpace.

It's no secret that MySpace popularised social networking- it practically invented it, so I feel that a lot of people set it as their benchmark for how a similar site should be run. Facebook changed that, mainly by having customisable content on every level- you could add photos, videos, tell people what you were doing at any given moment, play games within the browser you were using, so much stuff it was impossible to keep track of it all. It was new, fresh and people loved it. Facebook soon became the people's choice for social networking.

But then MySpace hit back- they started adding customisable content for people's profiles, too. They allowed you to share photos, videos, tell people what you were doing at any given moment, play games within the browser you were using, so much stuff you couldn't count it. In fact, if you think about it, the idea was lifted wholesale from Facebook. Or to put it another way, MySpace stole the idea from Facebook.

Then came the integrated instant messaging service. Fcaebook had the idea first- a toolbar across the bottom of your browser built into Facebook's code and fully integrated with the site and it's functions. It was innovative, and not many people had seen this function before. But it wasn't long before MySpace came up with their own integrated instant messaging service, and the interface was exactly the same, but with a different colour scheme. Again, MySpace had stolen an idea wholesale from Facebook.

Now Facebook has had the idea to make a username part of a profile's URL. This is nothing new. In fact, MySpace has been doing this since the site's conception. It was the main draw of MySpace for a lot of people- the ability to maintain anonyminity on the Internet, but still allow people to find them. It was an idea also used by Bebo, the long lost cousin of the social networking world. But now Facebook are using it, and I personally feel that it's a direct retaliation towards MySpace for all the theft that had been previously employed by MySpace regarding content.

But let's look at the bigger picture here. Social networking is starting to become the same kind of thing- customisable content; an easy to find screen name; the ability to talk to your friends on the site in real time without having to download additional content- there's no innovation anymore, no-one seems willing to try new ideas, instead going back to the old tried and tested formulae. It reminds me a lot of the gaming world when a console's starting to come towards the end of it's lifespan- developers decide that in order to try and optimise what little income they might have, they decide to rehash old ideas (usually from the best recieved and best selling games released on the console) and release them as original ideas, but they're never as good as the games they stole from. The buying public normally spot the imposter and shun them out of loyalty for the original game. That obviously can't happen with social networking, as every website is stealing from every other website, leading to a sea of clones and pale imitations.

So do we boycott social network sites? It's extreme, I admit, and not a course of action I'll personally be taking, but if you feel that it'll help, then sure, boycott Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. I don't know what you'll achieve out of it, but at least you can say that you tried.

I am who I am because of who I'm not

There comes a time in life when everyone has to stand back and ask themselves "What am I going to do?" It can relate to anything- a simple problem at work, deciding what to order in a bar, but my personal "What am I going to do?" moment will always be where my life's going. For me, "What am I going to do?" always relates to my future. Am I going to stick with the job I've got, or am I going to try and find something different? Am I always going to stay living in the same town that I've lived in for most of my life? Hence, "What am I going to do?" is more of a philisophical question.

Normally, I'm very happy to just stumble along and make decisions as and when life throws them at me. But somewhere things have changed for me recently. I've realised that I need to start thinking more long-term and stop living for the moment, that I've actually got to start planning things. I need to start thinking about long-term, tax-free saving accounts. I need to think about investing in stocks and shares, so that I can build myself a nestegg for when I finally retire. I have to seriously think about these things instead of just doing something because it was a "good idea at the time". Something in my head's recently told me that just won't cut it anymore. I have to be responsible for myself, and for my future.

This is where my statement of originality in the blog title comes in. The reason I've never planned ahead^* is because that's what other people do. I'm not other people. I am who I am because of who I'm not. I've said it for years. Planning is for the others. Those who are scared to be spontaneous and daring.

What brought this on, you may ask. You can ask all you want, because I can't give you an answer. I've just had this nagging thought in my head that things won't be like they are now forever. I need to re-evaluate my life, my talents, my hobbies, my plans. Everything needs to be looked at for me. Because I've somehow realised that I'm no longer an individual, I'm another faceless drone working for other people that don't appreciate or understand me, and that my life has the option of not being a string of successes, but being a string of failures. I failed to make my writing stand out. I failed to make my drawing stand out. I failed at getting a half-decent job. I failed at making this blog stand out. I failed at making and keeping friends.

I failed.

Two words I never use in conjunction with myself, but that's the sad truth. I failed myself, and now I'm just a regular person, doing regular things, and I'll never be able to live the life of someone that actually done something with their life, as it's no longer possible for me to actually do anything. I've not got anything that makes me stand out. I'm normal, and I now realise that.

But despite that, I'm still me. I'm still who I am because of who I'm not. I still like to think that I'm a good person. I still like to think that I've touched at least one person in my life with my work. But until I know that I've done that, I'm going to have to be happy with being adequate.

*I'm talking about a major time period, such as years, as opposed to weeks or months.

Remember the good old days?

Remember the good old days of the Internet? The days when there were only a couple of browsers and everything worked well? Well, it seems that a lot changes in ten years and now we're bombarded with over a dozen different Internet browsers each with their own reasons for and against using them. But it seems that web developers are only creating sites that are optimised for a single browser- namely Mozilla's Firefox browser.

Now, I've not got anything against Firefox apart from the fact that I don't use it myself. The main reason people used it was for tabbed browsing,a nd now that Internet Explorer 7 has that particular feature, in my mind Firefox is redundant software. Yet people still insist on not only using it over IE (Internet Explorer) but they insist on optimising websites for use with this browser- that means that people that use IE such as myself can't see these site's full potential. Which is stupid, as you're clearly limiting your potential userbase by means of filtering how they view and interact with your site.

There's an Internet forum (that shall remain nameless to protect them from themselves. Or something) that develops it's site for viewing in Firefox, and as such optimises features around Firefox's functionality. This is the time of year when there's a huge emphasis on romantic gestures between wifes/husbands/boyfriends/girlfriends. A lot of places celebrate this period between Christmas and Easter with an event of some kind. This particular site is one of them, and everything seemed to be going fine. Until I realised that the event doesn't actually work if you use IE.

Putting it very simply, you have to interact with other users, gaining points for every interaction until you reach a certain number of points. You then recieve a heart that can be spent on items made especially for the event. Simple? Well, yes. At first you needed to gain 200 points (minimum gain 2) to earn a heart, and you need 96bhearts to gain all the items. After protest from a few users, it was decided that the number of points needed would be halved and the number of hearts gained doubled. That's all well and good, except that for me, being an IE user, the code isn't compatible and I'm stuck on the old mechanics. I made the admin team aware of the issue (in a very curteous and civil manner, I might add) and ended up getting the kind of tongue lashing normally reserved by a mother-in-law when a hamster's birthday is forgotten.

So after a bit of sarcasm and a few home truths the team member decided to be civil with me, and we tried to fix the problems. We got a minor difficulty sorted out, but we never managed to fix the event, with the advice given to me as "just cope with it." Which is like saying to a person with a broken neck "Well, you can walk, you'll be fine. Just don't bump into anything and don't lean down." Avoiding the problem doesn't make it better.

It's times like this that I wish we were back in the old days. I don't mean the 54kb/s days, I mean the dual browser days- you had IE and you had Netscape, and that was it. Everything worked, there were no functionality problems because they were, essentially, the same browser. I don't get it. The saying goes "If it's not broke, don't fix it." IE isn't broke. It displays web pages, that's all you need it for. You don't need a spell checker or addons or any other crap like that. You've got a word processor, that's got a spell checker, use that! And as for the addons? That's why you have an Internet browser in the first place, so you can find a site that does those things! You don't need them integrated into your browser, that defeats the point!

In my opinion the only decent thing to come out of the Browser Wars is the open availability of tabbed browsing. Apart from that? Firefox can kiss my big fat hairy ass!

And over in the technology world...

Browsing the technology news isn't something I do very often, but it seems that I'm missing something, somewhere. I decided to take a look today¹ and I saw the news that Linux-based machines are starting to sell more than non-Windows, non-Macintosh based machines. Last time I checked, Windows and Macinstosh were the two major operating systems for a PC, so it's only logical that a known-name like Linux will be the best seller outside of these systems.

And to be honest, that's the only really interesting thing that's happening in the world of technology at the moment. No flying cars, no jet packs and no teleportation devices. And no time travel yet, either. But time travel's something that deserves a blog of it's ow, due to the complex nature.

And as I'm now talking about nothing, I'm going to stop.


¹You know. For kicks.