Social Networks - New ways to communicate
My kids communicate differently than I do! Now this may seem an obvious statement, but as I look at the communications environment they do it differently! My generation uses/used phones, letters, greeting cards and eventually email. Some of us even have ventured into blogging, but not many. My kids use Facebook! I had the opportunity this past weekend to take a 2, 4 hour car rides with my 22 year old son - Jameson and talked about Facebook and how he uses it. My only real reference point is LinkedIn which is a nice connector of people in the business world, but doesn't seem to be near as robust as Facebook or MySpace.Jameson says if Facebook would go down tomorrow, there would be a whole lot of pain for the college kids who stay connected through this network. He said, 1% of all Internet traffic happens on Facebook. He stores all of his contact info on Facebook and it is automatically updated by the owner of the information. It's built around your profile and the networks to which you belong. An example of a network is "Kansas University Students" or "People in the KC Metro area". As with LinkedIn, you invite people to be part of your Facebook. It gives the ability to keep track of his friends, events in their lives, invite people to events, see their photos and videos, and write on their "wall". It can be a one-to-one, a one-to-many, or a many-to-many environment. It also provides the ability to "Poke" someone which really does nothing more than remind someone you're around.
This explanation doesn't do justice to the way they really use Facebook, but suffice it to say, their communication is different, more varied and more interactive than mine. It's all about interactivity, networks of people, convenience and control. Instant Messenger and Text Messaging have to play into this discussion as well. I never quite understood how my kids could carry on 10 conversations at a time on instant messenger. I am beginning to realize the power and convenience of text messaging. My 16 year old and I use this all of the time to ask short questions or give notification to each other. Again, convenience. I think it has great implications on various industries, the work-place as a whole, education systems and government entities. Being a Hallmark Cards alumni, I am sensitive to this generation not buying greeting cards like I do. I am sensitive to the future of government communications and how they'll have to change to take advantage of these new and different ways of communicating. I'm really sensitive to how communication will happen in businesses once this generation begins to move into leadership positions.
Anyone else intrigued by this change?
posted by Andy Huckaba @ 4:14 PM
1 Comments:
The key to social networking, for me, is that it is analogous to real life, but much quicker. It's nearly the same as picking up the phone to call someone you should have kept in touch with, but it occurs constantly and with many more people.
Only one correction: 1% of all time spent on the internet is spent on Facebook, not traffic.
It'll be very interesting to see how primary methods of communication change in the business world as my generation moves into management.
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