Network Age

I came across this article over BBC News which talks about the suitable age for networking in today’s world.

 

From MySpace, to Facebook to bebo, sites which allow users to conduct their social lives online are booming – and attracting feverish interest from investors and advertisers.

 

 

But is this just a flash-in-the-pan, an internet fad that will soon go the way of CB radio in the 70s? And is it just for the under-25s?

 

Article is written by a 40-something Technology Correspondent. He goes through network experience in today’s online world and tries to create network using different social networking websites but in the end, what he concludes is –

But despite my hard-won social success – and the constant twittering of my phone – I think I’ve had enough.

 

I have decided I am too old to Twitter and too mature for Myspace. Some things are best left to the young.

Is it true? If it is in case of few social networking websites, then, I think, they are not more than just bubbles!

 

Here is excerpt – pretty sad story about social networking in Web 2.0 era.

Too old for networking?

 

As a 40-something Technology Correspondent, determined to keep up with my younger colleagues, I felt duty bound to find out. So I got myself a profile on MySpace, bebo and Facebook.

 

I also signed up to the hottest new social networking service, Twitter. This has an added twist – you can send short updates to everyone in your network via text message, providing a running commentary of your life.

 

After a few days I can’t help noticing one thing about my virtual social life – I don’t seem to have many friends.

 

I have tried to find anyone I know on these sites – but nobody seems to be there.

 

Then, a moment of excitement – I’ve suddenly got a friend on MySpace.

 

He’s called Tom. My 16-year-old son – a veteran of social networking – puts me right. “Dad, Tom is the guy who runs MySpace – he’s everybody’s friend”.

 

By now I am having a bit of luck with Twitter – but I’m beginning to wonder why I signed up.

 

My circle of Twitterers – all of them in my age bracket – include my oldest friend, a Cardiff doctor using the soubriquet TopDoc, and two friends from the murky world of public relations, Suburbman and TheClackster.

 

Soon my phone is twittering with every detail of their mundane lives.

 

“Not much happening right now. About to take a shower,” says Suburbman

 

“Up at dawn, back hurting. read the Guardian online,” is the thrilling news from TopDoc.

 

 

In a final attempt to prove that I can network, I head for a meeting of some of the dotcom world’s biggest movers and shakers.

 

Sitting at the back of another seminar on the future of technology I am awed and humbled to spot a top French blogger, Loic Lemeur, sending live twitters from his laptop.

 

But I’m a little reluctant to ask him or anyone else to network with me.

 

Then I spot the two founders of Bebo, Michael and Xochi Birch.

 

They try to convince me that the social networking phenomenon is now attracting more mature adherents – some even older than me.

 

So I feel emboldened to ask the couple “Will you be my friends?” Well, what could they do? I now have a tiny Bebo network consisting of me and the founders.

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