It is not my cup of tea at the moment but as many things change in life, this blog entry should be considered for what it is - a brain fart particular to my state of mind, overall consciousness and vision of the world at this exact time of posting.
'location based social networking'
I noticed Google's Latitude some years ago and even though it was touted by many as a new way to interact with friends, I stopped using it about 1 week after I installed it on my mobile. Basically, Google Latitude used the gps functionality in my mobile to show my whereabouts in (almost) real time. Being the technology junkie as I am, I tried it out first and thought about it later. Upon thinking about it, I decided to drop the app as I didn't want the 'world' to know where I was at all times.
Foursquare is a 'new and improved' Google Latitude - literally - and I know I'm cutting corners here. Google Latitude is the evolved version of the 'Dodgeball' graduation thesis project of Dennis Crowley, who is surprisingly a co-founder of Foursquare. Foursquare enables you to connect with your friends using either a computer or a smartphone. The smartphone app will also update your location in real time using your gps data. What makes Foursquare different is the way that the users can interact with the locations each time you 'check in'. Anyone can tag a location like a bar, a restaurant, a parking lot, a house, ... which makes it a potential place to 'check in' if you (or rather your smartphone) is in the neighborhood. Owners of commercial venues use this tagging to provide special treats, pricing, incentives... to anyone that 'checks in' as you being at that place will show up on your personal profile web page - possibly triggering some of your friends to join you and hence add to the commercial benefit of the venue.
Me on Foursquare (indeed a short paragraph)
Ok, I expected Foursquare to be more social and entertaining in general so I created an account to check it out. Being used to Facebook, I didn't find anything new on the 'connecting with friends' part and as with Google Latitude, I still didn't want everyone I know my whereabouts at all times. You see, the problem lies not in the technology but with the user: given my lack of free time I will not always properly tag new 'friends' as either close friends, work related, bosses, and so on ... so I always risk revealing my location to that one person that I don't want to know about it.
Next to that, why on earth would anyone be interested in me being a the bakery or the gas station anyway? So I cancelled the account hoping to continue my happy life ...
Happy life?
My experience so far is divided in annoyance-related feelings and 'people are idiots' feelings (thank you Larry Winget for the term 'ditto-head'). First of all - and this is likely to only be the tip of the iceberg - people don't censor their information. Just because you can send me unsolicited messages about stuff I'm absolutely not interested about does not give you the right to annoy me with them.
I don't care about the bar or cafe you are in at 16h00, nor that you arrived a such and such customer's office during working hours. And I definitely don't want a listing of the waypoints on the motorway while you are taking a 100km drive. Either get a life or learn about the technology you're using! Those waypoints are defined by a moron with nothing else to do than clutter your experience with garbage. Look at your profile page and for God's sake, don't let your Foursquare app decide for you! Thinking and deciding for yourself is not all that difficult.
Most people I know are 'concerned' about their privacy when filling in online forms ... hasn't anyone considered that putting your location for grabs is a severe breach of privacy? You being at a bar is a genuine good argument for a burglar ... especially if he can see when you are heading home. Buying jewelry for your wife while being connected on Foursquare? She'll have to fake the surprise smile from now on. Aiming for a new job? Don't go to the interview while your boss sees you 'checking in' with the competition.
I covered some aspects on this in my blog "why localized social media is not as harmless as it seems"
Connecting People? Don't think so ...
People are connecting on too many social networks because they can, because the networks lure us with promises of friendships and 'getting to know interesting people', because as I see it, a lot of people prefer connecting with their laptop instead of connecting with other people. I don't mean this as a personal attack, it is just an observation. This is where Larry's 'ditto-heads' definition applies: people that shut down their brain and copy behavior of others.
Social network users don't take the time to actually read and learn about the functionality. They assume that it is working the way they expect. This is where the idiot factor comes in. For instance, you could use Facebook for connecting your friends, LinkedIn for your co-workers, colleagues, customers and even your boss, you may use Twitter for whatever need you have to put your brain farts out there. Unfortunately, these networks are getting interconnected and users get lost in the types of people that can read which of your messages: This means that any message gets distributed to all the networks depending on exactly those privacy settings you didn't take time to read about. Your boss on LinkedIn will see the 'I'm drunk' picture that your friend posted on your Facebook wall, your Facebook family will read your Tweets about how you really think about marriage, family...
I am only connected on Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm retiring other accounts for being obsolete or too cumbersome. Even though I have some 300 friends, I do see half of them every 2 weeks as these are people I dance with. Those I don't see for 6 months get 'unfriended' which is a weird thing as upon being 'unfriended', they try to get in touch to understand why they were 'retired'. Hmmm ... as if human interaction wasn't complicated already, here comes the digital break-up, sobbing, ranting...
Call me!
New 'visionaries' are building new ways for people to interact ... how about the old way? How about just talking to each other? The telephone was invented some 135 years ago, why not give it a try? Most people use their smartphone to send text messages ?! Seems that they don't really get what the initial and core functionality of the device is all about. Even so, given the state of spelling of those messages, I guess the phone is indeed the smarter one.
