I know this may be considered heresy to some in these circles, but I don’t need a social network. I have a great social network already. It consists of a relatively small group of good friends and family. Of course I socialize with the people I work with too. Beyond that I am not looking to connect with lots of new people all the time. Perhaps I should also point out that I test pretty far over on the "i" (for "introvert") scale on the Myers Briggs test.
What I do need and want is to connect or even socialize with knowledge, topics and information. I soak that stuff up. I may even occasionally want to converse a bit with the people behind the ideas and information I like, but that’s secondary. What I want is to constantly discover new ideas, new restaurants, new places to go, new anti-oxidants… And then I want ways to remember and remix the stuff I discover and like for myself and for others too.
When we talk excitedly about social networks, I think we need to differentiate between social networks of people and social networks of ideas and information. They are different, they serve different purposes and the are (mostly) used by different people.
I really like the idea of social knowledge. I want to hook up to your topics and interest, not to you. Sorry, nothing personal.
-hans peter
Plum: Anti-social networking
A couple of posts back I went on a wee rant about how frustrated I was that I couldn’t scribble on my desktop (stickies being close, but not quite what I have in mind). Then I read this post by
Hey HP. How are you? Hope all is well. So this is what you are doing. Very cool. Interestingly, we launched a site recently called Bolt.com for a client - It’s targeted at teens - and we are attempting to position it as a CREATIVE NETWORK, not a SOCIAL NETWORK. The tagline is CULT OF CREATIVITY. The functionality is cool - but where it’s headed is not - in my mind. With this demo, there’s always a strong pull towards socializing and being somewhat sexual or raw or juvenile. But we are trying to have the CREATIVE [or the IDEAS or ART] be the front of the interactions and have the social stuff be secondary. thread is not managing the property - we just helped them build it. The goal was to have the content be the front face instead of the person’s personal info. They are getting lots of traffic but it’s becoming a MySpace-like site - which we were trying to avoid in terms of being different. With the demo you are targeting, this PULL TOWARDS sex may or may not happen. Part of it depends on the censorship and editing by your team - but human nature on its own - well, it will be interesting to see. Again, if thread were managing Bolt.com, we would try to have more impact on the content that is pushed to the top. Begs the question for you: How will you edit this or do you think you will have these issues?
Thank you for explaining my sentiments as I was unable to explain them so well.
I also have no interest in getting internet hugs, sharing my feelings or seeking solace from a circle of internet friends. And this is what I saw (exluding the sexual wackjobs of course) proliferating on other friend-based aggregation sites (MSN Spaces, Y! 360, etc.).
Are you proposing Plum will attract a different breed or simply forewarning people not to expect you to respond favorably to sent ‘hugs’
.
Joe
Joe, we are hoping that Plum is going to evolve as a place where people will make and share collections of the things, topics, and ideas that matter to them. If that includes “internet hugging techniques” I’m all for it
There are many solutions that let you create variants of the “all about me” pages on the Net already. I hope that we are able to build something different than that. Plum tries to both be a useful tool should you not want to share, and an even more powerful one if you are willing to let others see the stuff you care about, stumble across or need.
Soon we will open our gates and then we shall learn how people want to use the service.
-hans peter
I like your style of heresy, Hans. My friends know that I am always on the Internet, but are surprised to learn that I’ve yet to wander into a Chat Room. I am not interested in talking to people. I would never walk into a room full of strangers, even with shared interests, and be overwhelmed with the desire to get to know them. I am not the sort who spontaneously discloses my likes, dislikes, thoughts, opinions, etc., just because somewhere is there who claims to want to hear all about me! I enjoy the Internet for the knowledge, not the social life. I have a real one of those and will gladly forego the cyber version.
Great post and general idea(s). I look forward to the launch of Plum.
I agree with you about the over use of the word social by our industry leaders. On the one hand it is fantastic to see that we, Web professionals, are finally getting that this “Web thing” is about so much more than technology for technology’s sake or design for design’s sake, etc.
It does, in fact, involve people (I include knowledge as you refer to as it only exists in the minds of human beings; you can’t pick up a piece of knowledge and feel it’s weight in your hands).
On the other hand, our rather hype-prone industry has taken the term and slapped it in front of every single element or product we work with or create: Social browsers, social bookmarks, social text, social technology, social networks…it’s a bit out of social control.
“Social” as commonly defined, refers to matters relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society.
So I totally agree with your idea, I just think we are talking about a shared network of knowledge (human knowledge, not social knowledge…that surely will emerge as a term and when it does I will ponder the question: “doesn’t this mean knowledge of society?”).
Seems petty, but words are powerful and I’m very into meaning these days. So, I have to wonder why you say “socialize with knowledge?” I get the point-I’m not an idiot- but let’s not abuse the meaning of the sacred word “social.”
You want to “learn” so maybe leave out the social part and just call it what it is.
Great to discuss these topics. Bravo and thank you again!
Hans Peter,
Love the idea of Plum, and but absolutely do not believe you are an introvert. My recollection of you is as wondefully social and outgoing, making food for the crew on Nesodden. I didn’t see your email so am using the blog to connect.
Elaine
It is nice to see that thinking is moving in this direction. At this stage, social networking feels like a maturing fad making the internet a more comfortable and enjoyable place to connect with others. My interests (or at least practical needs) have always been more information-connection than people-connection to either collect information for interests sake, solve a problem or make a decision. I find this the same within organizations. However, there has been little available technology-wise to address and capture the ‘connections’ aspect which is inherent to retaining the context around point-in-time information. We can find individual or groups of documents/pages which contain the same keywords but that does not tell us if or how these documents were related to each other in some context.
At this point I am considering my options in developing something similar to plum but designed to support business operations, R&D and leveraging investments in document management. Start-up or partner, which way to go? I would be very interested in sharing experiences and see how far out of the current ‘internet search envelope’ things can be pushed.
Regards, Keith