The Network of Networks

I've tried to remain as loyal to traditional ways as possible most of my life.  I feel a sense of nostalgia when it comes to pretty much anything and everything traditional.  While I get excited about electronics and technology, I try to resist serial buyage that only serves the consumerist concept of duplication behind it.  The current world seems to have the motto of "if you have it, spend it."  I come more from a background of "if you have it, save it."  This same hesitation has always existed for me when it comes to the various social networks and internet media in general.  A Tribute to Life would've never existed for this very reason had a friend in Philly never convinced me it was a super fun outlet for writing and creative thinking.  I believe it was the same friend who convinced me that a Facebook profile would be super fun.

For years, I've seen my blog and Facebook profile as sufficient internet mingling.  There have been so many other creations and social media pressures, including MySpace, Twitter, FourSquare, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.  But, in my mind, I've never fully understood why one would need to mingle in so many different places.  It's not dissimilar from my phone situation.  When I decided years ago to have a cell phone, I never could convince myself that a land line was necessary.  What's the necessity there?  One or the other would surely suffice.  Similarly, the multiple social networking concepts all seemed like overkill to me.  And then I recently was forced to duplicate social media efforts.  Yes, forced, and it was most ironic looking back on it.

I was at work and tasked with doing some research on executives at a handful of companies.  There's an upcoming event, sponsored by Ernst & Young, and we were working to nominate entrepreneurs for the annual "Entrepreneur of the Year" awards.  As I searched all of the subscription databases for details on these individuals, I found few details.  However, when I moved to the general Google search, the first result for almost every one was his or her LinkedIn profile.  The catch?  In order to view their profiles and garner details for my partners, I had to subscribe and launch a profile.  So, I had to sacrifice my personal vendetta against social networking duplication in the name of work.  Since then, I've dabbled a bit on LinkedIn, but I must say that nothing feels like a greater waste of time than the idea of re-collecting all of my Facebook friends on a separate network, slightly diversified in its presentation, and keeping them up to date on a slightly different set of information about myself.

I guess this trajectory is the same across all industries, so I shouldn't be surprised.  Everybody must diversify a little bit to differentiate themselves from others and perpetuate the industry.  In the case of these social networks, though, it just seems like an awful lot of talking about oneself.  It's just getting harder and harder to remember where I should be posting what.  After all, it would be awful to get it mixed up and post what I'm doing at work on Facebook, what hobby I'm currently following on LinkedIn and something tedious or uninteresting on Pinterest.