The next big thing.

I love new things. I'm constantly looking for something new to play, to try, or to set-up that is of an electronic flavor.  What I'm not good at is staying committed to non-new stuff. Once I get something working, I use it for a short period of time and then I stop using it all together. Google Groups, Instant Messaging and even a free Blood Bowl league have all been an obsession that quickly died out. (Although, I still want to do the Blood Bowl league.)

I've been pretty good about keeping up with my social networking sites and that is all thanks to the web browser, Flock.  The people sidebar helps me stay connected and made social networking fun.  I'm addicted to Twitter and Facebook because it is always one-click away.

As already mentioned, I can't just be happy with what I have.  I have to keep looking for something else that will waste even more of my time.  While I know many Twitter addicts, I have heard from people that they are disappointed by the amount of Twitter downtime.  I have also been frustrated when I need to tweet, but can't due to a problem with the site.  On Twitter, I have started see posts asking about any Twitter equivalents.  This is when I first heard about Plurk.

At first I ignored these posts.  While I don't enjoy how often Twitter goes down, I can't do ANOTHER Twitter-ish micro-blogging affair.  Then I saw a tweet from Jon Gordon from Future Tense on NPR, he said, "Sigh. Signed up for Plurk just in case, and to protect the username jongordon". While I'm not afraid of people taking my net-name, I thought it sounded like a good reason to sign-up.  Just in case.

Plurk has a nice layout, look, and feel (although not everyone likes the headless mascot.), but I haven't been able to find many people on it.  I'm sure some of it is because the site is fairly new, but also because it seems their "find friend" feature is more geared to inviting non-plurkers to Plurk.  This is my biggest problem with social networking... the peer pressure.

I hate forwards, I hate app requests on Facebook and I hate "selling" things to my friends.  I've always wanted to be a person who recommends something because i really believe in what I'm recommending.  Because of this, I do my hardest to cancel anything that will send a request to all my friends automatically.  I do not want to "push" anything on anyone... let alone the people I care about.

No, I'm not going to send that quiz I just took to everyone on my friends list.  Sorry, I'm not going to invite everyone I know to Pownce.  Would you stop asking me to inform my friends about this great new widget?  If Plurk is good, it has to be good with the other early adopters who, needless to say, adopted it early.  If I find that Plurk becomes part of my grid-based lifestyle,  I will then , and only then, share it with my friends.  Respect needs to be built first.

Social networking is getting a bit out-of-hand.  Everyone is out to create the next Myspace, Facebook and Twitter.  On top of doing blogs, micro-blogs, digging, bookmarking and sharing, I'm running out of room for the next big thing.

Blogged with the Flock Browser