Interactive Culture
Posted on | February 4, 2009 | No Comments
How do people interact with their networks?
Blogs, Podcasts and Vidcasts have been heralded as the New Media, and indeed they are for now. But the value of the media isn’t the content any longer but the conversations they engender. Fantastic Podcasts can have hordes of listeners but if their is no conversation then the new media can not make the jump to Social Media.The problem with Monikers like new media is that sooner or later the new media smell just isn’t there anymore. All that’s left is the value of the content vs the effort it takes to get it.
Today the terms are used interchangeably, Social is not new, but new can be social. The way in which we relate to one another has not changed since the dawn of time but the tools we use to do it has.
Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace take a different slant on Interactivity. The conversations are much less static, and the relationships go deeper. You interact with these people and choose to friend or follow them based off of the value they add to your conversation. Whether you realize this or not each choice to follow, friend or interact with people is predicated on an internal cost benefit analysis of the relationship. Some people are much more open and honest about how they use these networks.
Using twitter as the example here, but with slight modifications most of the rules can be applied elsewhere as well.
I would be willing to bet that the average number of friends on twitter is around 20, and follows is only slightly higher. So who makes up the rest of the equation? If the vast majority of twitter users only interact with a small circle of friends and family, updating their What are you doing? who are the rest? For the record right now I follow around 500 or so people, and try to keep a roughly even level on following back.
What is a Big Twitter?
- Clebrities
- Networkers
- Self promoters
- Conversationalist
Celebrities, large and small use the network to extend their celebrity that much further, they have large followings and only follow the people back who interest them directly. Some take the time to relate back to the questions posed to them, but their stream remains clean unless they look for the conversation. Celebrities have to operate on a look but don’t touch level for safety sake, and probably sanity’s sake as well. If you knew that your favorite author was on twitter and you followed him, writing fan mail, and derisive mail is only 140 characters and a click away. No one needs that type of pressure.
Then you have the networkers, people who follow as a courtesy and to expand their network for business, or pleasure purposes. Even well documented cases of Political figures using the service have lent themselves to this approach, build and attempt to interact with as many people as possible. Sometimes the growth is premeditated, sometimes its due to preexisting cache Networkers get the power of twitter, they understand that the more people you reach, and the more people who you interact with that the more powerful your interests become.
The self promoters think they get the service, following as many people as they can but they lack the conversation, they broadcast their blog posts and their photographs to the masses, like a form of TV for your cell phone, it might work for some people but I personally don’t follow anyone like this, I enjoy the conversation.
Conversationalists. I live here. My network has organically grown through observing other people’s streams. if i see a person whose commentary i value adding to the conversation of another frequently. I head on over to that persons stream and evaluate them as a potential conversation partner. Empathy, interest and humor attract me to following random people. Hopefully i provide a bit of the same, with a good dash of random rant thrown in.
Where did this come from?
The ability to interact at all is one of the basic human advances over any other creatures on this planet, well that and the whole thumb thing we’re doing quite well for ourselves.Community, communication and interactive media are some of the basic cornerstones of the various civilizations throughout history?
Interactive media? seems a bit out of place, doesn’t it. Think about it this way. You’re a fine upstanding Pharaoh and you would like someone who isn’t standing right in front of to learn the story of your gods, honor their accomplishments. A Temple is constructed to do just that, the population as a whole interacts with the structure as a place of worship, a public works building, and in some ancient civilizations a brewery as well.
Cathedrals did the same but dropped the breweries. They allowed an illiterate populace to experience the religious traditions of the realm. Fascinating as this may be we need to jump forward past the Gutenberg Bible, Radio, TV and the Tamagochi craze to hit the topic we see here today.
Humans haven’t changed the basic tenants of our society, their is no evolution of the masses, but the range of our influence is extending and the reach of our tools has long outstripped the spear.
Its going to be interesting to see what comes next and the usage patterns that emerge as Twitter, facebook and Myspace to a lesser extent grow up. People on whole interact with their small circle of friends and coworkers, but there have always been those who extended their reach. With social networks the rampant democratization of the tools allows us to study the interactions on a much broader scale.
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