I realized something just now. No matter how many Twitters and Facebooks and Buzzes there are out there to help us communicate to everybody with whom we have kept mostly friendly relations, I don’t think the loudspeaker feel of social networking will ever impact the way I communicate with friends online like instant messaging and chatting have. Really! I realized that with Google Buzz now all of a sudden all my friends who I never see on Facebook or Twitter have been shackled and thrown into the a prison cell of social media slavery. A few examples (and for the protection of my friends and this social study, I have cloaked the participants’ names with conspicuous photoshop spraypaint).
Exhibit A:
Yes I realize my friends are especially resistant to the practice of thought broadcasting. But you know what’s fascinating? That girl who was forced into social networking by Google used to stay up late nights chatting with me on AIM. We all stayed up all night talking to each other, entering random chatrooms together and creating our own private chats where we all planned gatherings, admitted deep, dark secrets and gave each other updates on our current crushes, with whom we were most likely also chatting.
In middle school, AIM was pretty much the afternoon hangout. We could pretend we were doing homework on the computer, we could talk to all our friends at once in privacy (this was a time before cell phones — you had to use the home line) and we LOVED it.
So what is it about neo social networking that is so repulsive to those same individuals that loved chatting online? Is it the vast openness of them? The fact that it’s all public?
Plus we know this wasn’t the case for all celebrities. Take Miley Cyrus, for example, the pressure she faced while on Twitter was so intense that not only did she quit the network, she also released this deliciously wrong YouTube video. Please excuse the unfortunate girl who typed the subtitles to the following video. In fact, you can just pre-hate me for this:
I just had to use it because it works so well. And now it’s so clear: my non-networking friends are just being Miley.
I have concluded that I will witness World War III in my lifetime. Before coming upon this realization, I was always scared to witness the third World War. I was certain none of us would get out alive. But now that I’ve realized it will in fact be almost completely virtual and involve a minimal number of nuclear bombs, I’ve decided to sit back and enjoy the show.
In one corner, we have the veteran champion, Google. From its search engine to its e-mail to its incredible mapping system and documentation of our ENTIRE GLOBE, Google has consistently out-performed itself in the past decade.
Not only that, Google never shows its flaws. Google doesn’t pump the internet full of rumors for months, make a big fancy announcement of a product and then wait a few months to release it. (I’m looking at you, ya goofy iPad-releasing Apple execs!) Instead Google makes a small chink in the internet, and slowly trickles the information down just the way it wants the information trickled, from the utmost elite nerds down to the educated tech-savvys down to, oh, let’s say the tech-savvy people’s parents and friends. For the moment Google doesn’t need lowly AOL or Hotmail users. Not a good target market.
Google not only knows how to market, Google knows how to deliver. Apart from Google Wave, I’ve found most Google services to run flawlessly. The tone behind Google’s minimalist style and cutesy comments keep the company always friendly, always helpful, and always striving to provide the best of the best. For example, after Gmail chat is disconnected it returns by triumphantly announcing, “…And we’re back!” These little details win the hearts of users like myself.
In the other corner, there’s Facebook. Once a hero, the company has turned sinister and has unleashed its “Good guy gone bad” scheme into the world with striking terror. Facebook slowly gained a userbase among American college students, soon broadening the base to include high schoolers. I remember the outcry against such a move, and since that change Facebook’s objectives in staking claim in the social media world have morphed into an unidentifiable, power-hungry beast. The small online community (even in a campus of 60,000) created by my Texas network on Facebook really did work charmingly during my beginning years of college. Facebook helped us plan parties, organize photos of our friends, create groups for our dorm floor, create groups to perpetuate inside jokes and most importantly, post drunken wall notes after a night of bonding over jungle juice. Facebook was a community.
Now with more than 400 million users, Facebook is the internet. It’s the most common topic I overhear being discussed in my workplace. But the networking has changed — it’s almost non-existent. Groups are no longer a friendly spot with a few message threads and wall posts, they’re now formatted like a Fan Page that makes announcement after announcement with no real interaction — just announcements, related comments, and a number of thumbs up given to the post.
Facebook has become a one-stop shop for most of its users. It’s the shop around the corner that has everything — addictive games, information about every human being you deem to be an acquaintance, and even updates about products, businesses and public figures you adore. The problem? It’s cluttered with trash and the interface is buggy and, well, if you’re not careful your religious great auntie might see a post you wrote about women’s reproductive rights. I want all Facebook users to get this because I’m only going to type it once: in two years you won’t even want to speak Facebook’s name. It’s the Myspace of tomorrow and that’s final.
It’s only a matter or time before the anti-tweeters come around. They all came around to Facebook. They’ll come around to Twitter. And they will almost certainly find refuge in Google Buzz. I must admit Facebook’s foray into e-mail is a bit worrisome to me, but I don’t believe it will take off. Facebook can’t get chatting right and after the 12th redesign or so I just don’t care to relearn the navigation.
Facebook has turned into a public announcement fest — some say it has turned into Twitter, but I think that’s false. To me, Twitter is truly a conversation, a network with natural niches and webs built in. Facebook’s not cut out to defeat Google and it never will, because it just can’t deliver. So come on, Google Buzz, knock out Facebook so I can just delete that account already and move on with my life of buzzing and tweeting.
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