Networkin'

"I'm back on it, that's why you're never dissapointed" - De La Soul, No (featuring Butta Verses)

Being back on the grind is interesting. I could do without losing 90 minutes each day to traffic but otherwise, I'm very happy. The work is challenging and interesting and has such grand potential and I'm surrounded by really smart & motivated people.

And we work in CTU. Yeah, like 24, seasons 1 and 2, CTU. Seriously. When we're in the glassed off conference room perched above the rest of the office, it kind of feels like it. I'm convinced Nina is somewhere in the building doing some shady shit.

Bonus of working for a company with international executives? We get Canada day and Australia day off (but, apparently, we could care less about American Presidents or Civil Rights figures). That extended Independence day holiday is going to be very nice, though.

I've spent a hell of a lot of time with different social networking and blogging tools the last few days. I'm starting to come around a bit on the good parts of myspace. The willful ugliness still kills me but I've been getting into their sponsored pages - particularly Project Runway and the nip/tuck joints (which worked nicely with some recent reading)- and after getting an event invite today through the service was kind of overwhelmed with the quality of their "evite style" service.

I still need to sink my teeth into Text America a bit. Something about the site makes me pre-disposed to not like it for some reason.

Oddly enough, though, I think my favorite social networking experiences come from sites that aren't exactly social networking as I think of them. Flickr's ability to connect people and the seamless way they utilize really current and nerdy features like tagging and creative commons without bogging down the average user who could care less about those features is pretty impressive.

And then there's last.fm (which I still want to call audioscrobbler...so I will). I visit audioscrobbler more times a day than any other site except for gmail. At work, I use my last.fm radio tuner to play music I like or might like or have been recommended instead of my iPod because I want my listening habits tracked immediately. I am always excited to see that there are recent visitors to my page, always want to see the new and interesting ways in which I'm connected to people (I find it fascinating that it seems like my listening habits most resemble men in their early twenties from scandinavian countries and a fairly large number of college age girls. Who knew that my pop-hop-indie-downtempo leanings had a type?) and get super excited whenever my track databases update. I even obsess over the plug-in when I'm at home, checking my local lists pretty regularly to see what I've been listening to.

It is the difference between simple attention networks and a social network with purpose. My major site goal for blognet is to give it intention.

Speaking of Project Runway : Despite the still hinky voice over and work and audio cheats (which were crazy obvious in the casting special) on Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum this season, I fell in love with the show all over again. I really want to like Santino but he's so cocky it's kind of sickening. I don't like Chloe's clothes but I really like Chloe but, in the end, I think I'm rooting for Nick, who is LA trendster in the Surface Magazine/Flavorpill kind of way that, if I spent more time being cultured and less time with comic books and this infernal computer, I'd enjoy hanging with.

Comments

[mags]

I know. I am conflicted because I am drawn to Santino too. But he's a bitch! I like that Vietnamese girl with the Bruce Lee haircut, though. I'm excited to see what she creates. Oh. And Emmett. So hot. I can see him getting bitchy too...I have a feeling there will be way more drama this season!

[j. brotherlove]

You know.... I signed up at Audioscrobler back in February and didn't do much with it. The plugin for Media Center was wonky and I have no love for itunes.

Well, lo and behold, the wonkiness has been fixed and I'm now a last.fm addict. It's crazy! I love it for all the reasons you listed and now an expeiementing with their webservices - groovy.

Oh, and I'm totally snatching your weekly tracks idea. But you knew that already.

[Lynne d Johnson]

if you're interested in seeing how teens network - check out tagged.com and also don't forget the longstanding community connect sites - asianavenue, blackplanet, and migente (people are still drawn to them)

i'm still also trying to figure out whether frappr and orkut will become anything

from the looks of it - it seems as if google is trying to tie all things together - the same way as yahoo and aol has done, but even better

the next 5 years of interweb + adding on what happens in the mobile space - are going to be some really interesting years

[Bakari]

I use last.fm as my personal music diary, but I find the networking on their not very good. They need to do more to get people talking and exchanging messages.