the fascinating social media discussion

In the past few months I’ve added Robert Scoble, Steven Berlin Johnson, and the All Facebook blog to the blogroll my Google feed gets. I’m sure there are others out there I’m not aware of yet. I really enjoy having my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the tech and social networking arena to a greater degree than before.

Even though I’m mostly just reading and not commenting, part of me wonders if I could ever be a blogger with that much of a voice. The part of me that’s interested in where technology is going, especially the social aspects of it, asks if there’s a clear way I could get involved in the worldwide ongoing conversation soon rather than sitting here at my desk in the Midwest. I haven’t done much academic research, I’m not connected to many innovators yet, but I have an interest in these topics that has only grown over time. I didn’t get a minor in Information Technology Studies (ITS) for nothing, and I focused on the social aspects when possible. Perhaps if I started writing more entries on this focus and listed myself on Technorati or somewhere I would build an audience. That might be a starting place.

Sometimes I wonder…what effect are the decisions made at Google and Facebook this year going to have on me 15 years down the road? Do we really prefer a walled garden, or an OpenSocial world? What are the consequences of each? The teenagers of tomorrow, or maybe even today, are going to have a different view of community and privacy than people of my generation. Is there such a thing as too much integration online, or are boundaries old fashioned? These are just a few of the questions that have crossed my mind in the past year as Facebook has really taken off, even among older users, and Google continues to forge ever-newer ground.

There’s a lot to explore here. Even though these issues may seem periphery at times, they will affect our way of life.

A small housekeeping note: Google Analytics says I haven’t gotten any hits on this site for over a month, so I wonder what that means. I hope I still have readers.