Twitter, Facebook and Blogger, Oh MY!

Have to say, as far a social networks go, old BBS doors were probably my first. Being able to play door games on a local BBS gave me the opportunity to socialize with other local geeks. I could chat with old, fat admins and play games with my friends like LORD.

I tried Orkut long ago, I loved it... but it seemed to hit the US like wildfire. As soon as people logged in tried it, thought it was neat, the fire quickly burned out and no one logged in again. I held on to my account for a while hoping something would spur it back to life. But, alas, only in Brazil does anyone use the (similar to facebook) application.

Guild Wars was a great place to get together with friends and chat it up and catch up on what was going on. And there was a sense of community within our guild and with anyone that wanted to join us. But, people got too busy and at least my gw's community has flat lined.

I started a Blogger page to share and document my life. I love it. Blog posts are great, they should take about five minutes to post, a minute to read and they should give enough insight to be interesting to a reader.

Myspace alluded me for a long time. The hideous pages with flashy, blinky crap all over them did well to keep me away. But, eventually my high school reunion rolled around and I started a myspace page because that's what my class was using to keep track of everyone. You'll be happy to know I deleted my Myspace page.

I have avoided Twitter for a long time as well. I joined finally to see why it's better than a status message on any IM client. Well, it's still a status messenger. But, one reason to use Twitter, would be to read back logs of someones status. I guess it is important to know that someone went to the restroom 4 hours ago or that I was feeling grouchy yesterday afternoon. I think the reason I have enjoyed it is because I can follow "celebrities". I know when Leo Laporte is on StickCam and when Cali Lewis posted a new geekbrief and when Veronica Belmont loses at Settlers of Catan. Granted, they usually just post a link to their blogs... I should just put those links on my home page and check them first.

I also avoided FaceBook for a long time, figuring it was just a cleaner version myspace. When a friend finally showed it to me, it looked more like a bloated twitter page. I started an account at some prodding of friends. I have to say that it is a fun way to waste time. Though with blogger I read all my friends blogs, everyday (even if they don't update). With facebook, I hardly can see the "tweets" and they're mostly very superficial. Other than pictures, most of the personal content is very shallow, with nothing of interest to make me read the microblogs. I enjoy playing the little games... but it's really old school bbs-ish, nothing really new and fantastic.

I've only had it for a day or two, still trying to really figure out the draw to twitter and facebook. I'm sure one day it'll just hit me :)