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I stumbled upon some posts from my old blog runinthefront.com and was thoroughly tickled. Sometimes I really question what runs through my head; I mean, there were blog posts entitled “Baby: The Other White Meat” and “Energy, Schmenergy!” I’ll have to revisit those later, but for now I want to focus on the post below, which was posted January 2008.

This rant all came about via a post on the now defunct DoshDosh. I’ll admit, there are some parts below that confuse me a bit, but for the most part I still feel the same three years later. I still think there is an impersonal divide between the development of social media and users. More and more people join without actually developing a voice themselves — and to me, this becomes a lot of noise to filter.

I feel like these sites are growing rapidly because they are all the rave, the hot topic and because, well, everyone else is doing it. This carries a heavy learning curve for those users in which they get bored quickly or neglect to see the value.

I won’t critque myself below because a lot has changed. Just thought I’d share.

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When does content meet reciprocality? When is push worth more than pull? How does frequency affect relevancy? What is the true value of social networks? Here is my rant, part deuce:

I am going to try and leave out the business aspect of SM, only because it is a valuable tool if used properly, ie. creating dialogue and developing relationships. On the other hand, I want to address whether social media is making us stupid, instigating ego-centricism, numbing the in-take of information, skewing our values, and allocating resources to meaningless endeavors. The simple answer – my answer – is yes.

There are some great resources that are almost solely dedicated to following SM such as DoshDosh, Mashable, etc. Having to somewhat stay up-to-date on all the issues, I am beyond the point of SM fatigue – I disagree with almost everything they have to say. There is too much noise, while not having a quality filter.

Everyday a new social media site opens. Everyday a new application for that medium is released. I think the term “killer app” may be one of the most overused, misappropriated, nonsense words out there. In my eyes, the only “killer app” out there is what could be described as “old-fashion email” (which is a whole other post).

So when did push become more important than pull?

On a personal level, what good is constantly updating meaningless information? From a relationship point of view, if someone asks your opinion on something, there is a stronger connection made than if you just speak your two cents. The pull for information has a complete different weight system than the push. Content is not King. Content is important, but if someone is throwing it around carelessly or too frequently or irrelevantly – it nullifies any importance it may have once carried. I have become completely numb to updates because I don’t want to have to wade through nonsense. Instead, let’s try to start a conversation about something – hence the smaller niche platforms like blogs.

The influx of so many SM sites has blown smoke over the original goals – to connect and create relationships. Just like calling on the phone, meeting in person, or hand-writing a letter creates a connection — Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, and all the livestreaming and microblogging have different degrees of intimacy. It is important to take into consideration the depth of the relationships, which may be based on multiple factors including real-time, relevancy, and sincerity.

I don’t see how posting information on non-niche platforms creates a bond, unless the information is requested. In no way am I saying using sites in this manner is bad, but there’s a need to re-evaluate the approach to further connections. Unless you are location-based or directly involved, is there a reason to know that “lolz, watching Cheetah Girlz new movie”? That is like taking a useful tool, let’s say a hammer, and misusing it. Actually, it is like hitting your friends over the head with it – you are spamming your network.

This technology is incredible. Billions of dollars are invested on a yearly basis to something that really doesn’t have too tangible of a product. The fact is, the tools will change, technology will advance, but most people don’t. To me, this is more about sociological factors. There needs to be a call to arms to harness everything out there for a greater progress – not just daily life updates. There needs to be new valuation ranges that aren’t directly interlinked with the monetization of its users. It is clear that quantity does not reign supreme here.

I realize that I am a little deeper into social networks than most, but it is truly like quicksand and I’m trying to pull myself (along with true value) out of it. I feel the only solution now is to wait for it to all go away. Of course it isn’t going to completely go away, but there will be a point of saturation. Not even saturation because there are so many similar platforms, but because marketing dollars are going to be spread thin supporting these sites. There is only a finite number of marketing money, and the thousands will feel the pinch soon. I believe you will see the mighty falling, maybe being replaced by nings (smaller scaled, topic specific networks). Maybe that is the first step in creating the filter I mentioned.

To answer one of my previous questions, “What is the true value of social networks?”

It is all about how it is leveraged — the ROI for finding innovative, cause-specific uses is infinitely higher than sending Facebook updates to email-capable Blackberrys. Sounds obvious, but is it?