Comments on: Social media makes distance irrelevant

By: markdykeman

markdykeman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:10:51 +0000

@Sammysunshine - great anecdote!

By: sammysunshine

sammysunshine — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:56:46 +0000

While I do agree that distance has been irrelevant, to some extent, for a long time because of the Internet, I think that these SNS make people who are thousands of miles away from us that much more present. (S’cuse my run on sentence!) I have had friends who have been teaching in Korea for ages. We’ve sent email and that was all well and good but, you didn’t get that present moment kind of feel that SNS gives. Since we’ve had Twitter and Plurk, they become real (in a way) to us again. We share virtual coffee and music together. It adds another more personal dimension to the way we communicate. If it is more personal, it seems more relevant.

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By: markdykeman

markdykeman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:03:30 +0000

@Barbara - no worries. It can be pretty time consuming to maintain an active on-line life, just like an off-line life.

I’ll check out the “disconnect” post!

By: Barbara Doduk

Barbara Doduk — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:55:18 +0000

I am sorry I haven’t commented much. I find that the world becomes a little to large when you include the web world, I don’t know how some people can spend so much of their lives online keeping in contact with everyone. I work full time, in fact I am sneaking a bit of time while at work to type this.

I wrote about the disconnect that internet interaction creates on a recent post of mine. So much can be lost without the in person touch and feel.

Interesting topic.

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By: markdykeman

markdykeman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:15:29 +0000

@Alexander - you bring up a good point about the quality of social interactions (or the authenticity of social interactions) that a broadcast can provide. It’s the next best thing to actually experience an event in person. It’s hard to mimic the reaction of a 1000 person crowd when the 1000 people are in separate rooms staring at computer screens. Even on-line gaming won’t do the same thing because of the absence of physical closeness or contact.

Maybe we need to graduate to holograms or true virtual reality.

By: Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:36:15 +0000

Mark, I sort of abused the term social media on purpose when I called the TV the best social media channel. I explained in my post that I wasn’t tlaking about the interaction capabilities of the TV, there aren’t any. It’s a broadcasting thing only. But the way TV works right now brings us unmatched social interaction. Not on the TV, but because of its abililty to broadcast to millions of people. There isn’t a social media service thinkable that can have such an impact on human interaction. Massive on-line gaming gets that way, but on a very small scale compared to TV. And current computer devices are aimed at single users, lone rangers, that might connect digitally but can’t have the same rich social interaction as 100 people watching a soccer match in a pub together.

By: markdykeman

markdykeman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:24:36 +0000

@Robin - “the internet itself is *the* social network” - wow, that’s a good observation, hadn’t thought about it in those terms.

You also bring up a couple of good examples of how the appearance of interactivity is being built into television, but it requires a separate medium (telephone calls, text messages, or E-Mails) plus a “live” broadcast in order to work in this fashion. If you look at the American Idol example, yes, you can vote, but you can’t see the results during the same show. At the same time, I think I’ve seen examples where votes were tabulated during a show.

More thinking required!

By: Robin Cannon

Robin Cannon — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:51:36 +0000

Well, I think we’ve seen television’s attempts to make it a more interactive experience. Led to the joys of reality television. The fact that such tripe as Big Brother is consistently successful suggests that there is a genuine demand for interaction with the medium…even if such interaction is in the most shallow way and based on such poor television output.

But then I don’t think television is in any way suited to interactivity in the same way (my personal pet hate is the “text us your inane thoughts on this news story” that extends even to the BBC). It’s still a far more effective medium for widely disseminating information, entertainment and real-time coverage of events than the internet.

I think the clear benefit of social media is that it allows widescale discussion and interaction beyond boundaries. Sure, other aspects of the internet such as email and IM have removed distance boundaries in the past, but generally on a more individual to individual level. We’re moving now towards a much more community based aspect. In fact I’d argue that the internet itself is *the* social network, and that everything else is just a niche within the whole.

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