MLA Week 3 - Social Networking

Woo hoo! I finally revisit some of the sites I joined long ago and am only finally starting to see people I'd actually want to keep tabs on joining! I was asked to join LinkedIn awhile ago by someone at an IA conference and it was well over a year before anyone else I knew was there. Then the library community found it and all of a sudden its taking off (well, for me).

MLA and Social Networking

MLA could definitely use social networking to connect to members as you have an institution, events and members. Plus there are interest groups within MLA that would lend themselves well to it. It probably wouldn't work as a replacement for the more formal means of connecting/communicating but as a great supplement. Due to the faster mutation factor in online communities MLA would do well to use them as idea generators/incubators and sounding boards. Sort of like virtual petri dishes for studying its membership and finding out what they want in a faster, more honest way than before. Not sure if they're as good for any sort of official business. But my perspective is warped - I suspect there's tremendous administrative overhead in MLA as in many organizations. At some point the social networks might surpass the more traditional ones and those will be used more as a backup. Kind of like meeting minutes and agendas - most of the interesting stuff takes place faster and outside those boundaries, but they help anchor people's memories and keep them on track. In theory.

Facebook or MySpace

Our library is interested in a presence on Facebook though we're probably going to avoid MySpace. We're a health sciences library, academic institution and demographically MySpace just trends a little too young. Facebook seems to have more of a academic cachet and we're very interested in the idea of making sure people can find us wherever they are, plus we're very into the idea of modularity and building tools/widgets to scatter across the intertubes (but in a tasteful and non-pushy way). We wouldn't mind largely blowing away our library website and replacing portions of it with such widgets, but we'll probably continue even lesser used parts of it for the "web traditionalists". Plus you can only do so much with widget-y applications currently and we can do lots more on our site/server. I personally hope we avoid using Facebook to promote or try to appear hip, but being there for people to find us and connect with would be fab.

Privacy Concerns

Yes, absolutely there are privacy concerns with these sites. By the same token there's also the potential for a more explicit agreement between the users and the administrators of these sites. That is, it can be difficult to find out what the bank or store you have a credit card with does with your information and you have to do all the work - usually when you sign up with an online service they tell you that upfront, notify you of changes and let you change your preferences or even delete your account at will. So there is a balance between the old and the new. The ability to make copies and remotely access data does make the online scarier though. Not to mention the old "well, Facebook says they'll honor the covenant with you but George Bush just signed an executive order making them give up the data and we can't control what they'll do with it - sorry!" (or the Facebook gets bought out by Rupert Murdoch). I used to be a huge privacy fundamentalist but am now more in the David Brin camp - the problem is I'm willing to be more open with my info than I used to be but I see the people who have access to it moving in the opposite direction which bothers me. I guess any site I get into an agreement with voluntarily its my choice, my problem if it goes bad. But what happens when my information gets hoovered up by people who I don't have an agreement with?

Likes and Dislikes

Well, MySpace has always made my eyes bleed and ears hurt. That continues, but makes sense as its roots are in promoting bands to fans. And I'm even a big music fan but sheesh! Its been hit with the ugly stick repeatedly. And just a little too far out of my age group. FaceBook I like because of the ability to build applications in, the different feeds to keep up with folks, etc. What I don't like is that so much of the content just seems so silly! Write on my wall, throw an elf at me, follow me around like a stalker - seems silly and narcissistic. Why would I want to do that? And I'm a really silly person! Seems like there's a lonely hearts club or boredom element to it all. Perhaps this is the accelerated MTV jump cut generation version of that. Actually I think one part may be introversion/extroversion but as explained by someone in my psych undergrad days - introverts already have high internal stimulation and find much more to be painful, while extroverts need some external stimulation to get up to a comfortable level. As an introvert I find it a little noisy and overwhelming, much as I prefer small groups of close friends and dark, divey pubs to loud, crowded nightclubs. So perhaps the thing for people like me is not mega-sites like Facebook but more dark, hidden corners created around more closely shared interests. These can be set up in Google Groups or the like, but not sure how you'd scale from mega-site to smaller, more intimate site. That may be Second Life territory...

Overall it seems to me (curmudgeon that I am) that just being connected by computer doesn't make a community, but you can use the computer and connection to enhance and expand your existing communities. I find that in person as well - just because I like X doesn't mean I'll hit it off with other people who like X :-)