Social Networking: Will it blend?

If I had photoshopping skills at all or had any kind of design or graphics ability at all, I would make up a Facebook logo in the blender of the folks at “Will It Blend”, so instead I’ll have to have you use your imagination and insert your own picture.

Today on The Mediasphere Radio Show that Tris and I do we had a special guest, Brian Oberkirch, and he discussed the issues of social networking and portability.  How can we blend our various sites and networks into one tool? How can we make it easier to adopt my friends on Facebook, with my friends on Pownce with my friends on every other application I have a username and password for?  This is a dilemma.

We discussed three areas

• Technical: The adoption of and ability to blend your networks. Brian discusses the technology more on his own blog.
• Privacy:  Something that I concentrate on specifically and have talked about it more when referencing Social Networks and Big Brother.
• Business Case:  This is where the great phrase Brian used as “Future Proofing Your Business” comes to play and how we sell it to the companies. He talks about designing portable networks in his recent post.

Thanks for the discussion Brian and we have a long row to hoe before we come to the perfect blending of social networks. We have many more questions to answer like for instance, do we want to blend our networks?  If we only need one distinct network what’s the point of having more than one?  Brian also referenced in the show a post by Danah Boyd entitled “Loss of Context For Me On Facebook“, where she discusses the blending of of all her networks and how it is not allowing her a way to compartmentalize:

I realize that I’m in an odd position. In some sense, I’m a “public figure”… at least in the world of social network sites. People see my name in the press and they friend request me and it’s rude of me to say no. I should be grateful that so many people are so kind to me, offering feedback and ideas, allowing me to get my work out far and wide. And I am truly grateful, but I’m also depressed that I’ve lost the ability to participate in social network sites as a semi-private person. I do miss the days when I could goof around digitally and not be taken out of context by people who only know me as this strong-headed, confident public voice. Some days, I’m just not that together. Some days, I just want to bitch without being called a bitch. Some days, I just want to talk to people who couldn’t give a hoot about social media.

She sums up nice with:

I can’t help but wonder if Facebook will have the same passionate college user base next school year now that it’s the hip adult thing. I don’t honestly know. But so far, American social network sites haven’t supported multiple social contexts tremendously well. Maybe the limited profile and privacy settings help, but I’m not so sure. Especially when profs are there to hang out with their friends, not just spy on their students. I’m wondering how prepared students are to see their profs’ Walls filled with notes from their friends. Hmmm…

I also mentioned in the show Jeremiah Owyang’s problems with the idea of making your children part of your network and now his new template which is an open letter to your kids. My seven year old daughter this week asked me when she could have a MySpace page.  I had no real response to her request.  I’ll probably let her have a public space when she can date, so my thoughts are about 32 years from now. 

Brian we appreciate you joining us today it really made me inspired about the future of social networks.  Make sure to download the discussion for those that were not able to hear the discussion live and if you want email me with your questions or comments, or feel free to leave a comment here, my Facebook page, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, …..

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