Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Partial Social Attention.

Further to my early acquirer post and having watched with interest at the different way people use Twitter, I am still finding the raison d'etre of a single focus for one's social networking to be somewhat elusive.

Convenience is an understandable goal, but the people in my address book are there for very different reasons, sometimes multiple reasons. So lumping together these different market segments of my social life is not entirely logical to me. It reeks of partial social attention - not wanting to miss out on anything because you wrongly believe technology will allow this.

No, Grant McCracken is right when he suggest that we will all require a number of social networks. Technology may facilitate the diary management aspect of networking but it can't replace the increasingly vital human component.



Technical Addendum: Is the fact that I can't click through on links in a Twitter window that appears on a publically accessible blog merely a technical glitch or an accidental form of social exclusion/elitism?

8 Comments:

Blogger Rachel Luxemburg said...

Yes and no. There's a pretty high level of overlap between the people in my LinkedIn and Facebook networks, for example, but I agree that 100% convergence is not the best outcome.

10:52 AM, June 21, 2007  
Blogger john dodds said...

What about your non-online networks?

11:25 AM, June 21, 2007  
Blogger Charles Edward Frith said...

The only point for the online networks is to pave the way for offline contact. In just the same way that a pen friend was never a real friend till you visited. The rest is just a virtual snowball fight.

Trust me. I'm in advertising :)

p.s John I've added you to twitter!

12:05 PM, June 21, 2007  
Blogger john dodds said...

Thanks Charles -you can explain it to me tomorrow. I'm adding that to a series of questions I have for you.

1:02 PM, June 21, 2007  
Blogger kaylen said...

there are some people i can only stand to socially network with via online messages and the occasional "oh, that's a nice picture."

nice to keep up with certain people and not have to actually interact with them to find out how things are going.

and it is excellent for stalking exes.

9:41 PM, June 21, 2007  
Blogger The Kaiser said...

You're on twitter?

2:47 AM, June 22, 2007  
Blogger Charles Edward Frith said...

Oops missed that John. Didn't make it to Brekky Club this morning!

11:41 AM, June 22, 2007  
Blogger john dodds said...

Strictly speaking yes - but I'm discreet to the point of silence.

12:22 PM, June 22, 2007  

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