I’ve somehow missed it yet again – my six year blogiversary! I started officially blogging on October 1st, 2001. I’m amazed that I’m still blogging and have somehow managed to turn it into a professional interest. A lot of things have changed in my life since October 2001 – I don’t live in IL, I’m in my late 20s, I’m not in college, and I work in a different field. Lately, my blogging has been fairly sporadic and other social media formats have taken more of my time (flickr, Facebook, Twitter). As cool as the explosion of social media has been in the past few years, I still miss how exclusive blogging used to be. I miss reading blogs that were authentic – not commerical enterprises. I miss the social connections that I was able to make at that time, simply because there weren’t that many other people participating in this medium. There’s something about this format [large text box + one:many + my own space that isn't part of something else] that I still find engaging and so much more effective at communicating my ideas and documenting my life.
« usability participants say the darndest things you know your parallel parking skillz suck when . . . »
I’ve noticed recently that in any new online thingy I join, my “friending” strategy is “If I don’t know you from somewhere else, I won’t friend you. If it weren’t for fellow bloggers that I discover or discover me, I wouldn’t make any new Internet friends. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Um, put an ending ” in there somewhere. :D
Totally agree with you – I don’t randomly befriend people on social sites (or accept random friend requests). The whole “friend” notion on social sites is usually fairly akward and unnatural. I’ve yet to see an implementation that gets at the nuances of real-life social interactions. I may know someone in the real world but that doesn’t mean that I really *know* them, count them as a friend, or heck even like them.
Actually now that I’m thinking about it, Flickr might do this best.