Opinion : The World of Social Networking.

By Bill Keller

In times both ancient and recent, “social networking” revolved around cooking a chunk of mastodon over an open fire while telling stories about the day’s hunt or tipping a cool one at Mickies enjoying the company of friends. As the Bob Dylan says – “times, they are a changin’”. Welcome to the new world order of “social networking” – bulletin boards, texting, twittering, blogging and “crack booking”.

When I built my first computer in the late 70s, the geeks of the world had an entire universe opened to them. Within a few short years storage went from cassette tape to floppy disk to hard disk. There was an incredible explosion of software, hardware and the beginnings of networking between computer users. At that time, these early social networks were confined to the techie types and the tool of choice became the BBS – Bulletin Board Service. With the advent of the Internet in the early 90s, this forum really took off. In fact, it was at this time I fired up our internet business – MEBBS – Midwest Electronic Bulletin Board Service. Social networking occurred via “forums” – areas of common interest where messages were posted and commented on. Of course, once you turn a geek loose on something as flexible as the internet the stage was set for some explosive growth. Look where it has taken us – to the world of texting, twittering, blogging and “crack booking” (Facebook). Just what’s in this world, how can we use it to expand our individual “social network” and where is it all going? Probably the most used technology is texting – using your cell phone to send a text message to a specific individual or group of individuals. Communications technology has changed with incredible speed. Since the first transmission of the letter “S” by Guglielmo Marconi on the morning of December 12, 1901 between Newfoundland and England to today, a mere 108 years have passed. Yet today, it is a simple matter of popping out your cell phone, thumbing a few keys and sending that message to, literally, any phone on the planet. This stunning level of change has made texting more popular today than actually talking on the phone. Where, in years past people kept diaries to record major and minor life events, today’s tool of choice is the “blog”. The most popular site for the creation of your very own free blog is Blogger. This is your doorway to posting your thoughts, photos and videos for the entire world to see. Perhaps the most famous blog is the Julie/Julie project that was recently made into the movie “Julie and Julia”. Julie Powel took on a challenge – “365 days. 536 recipes. One girl and a crappy outer borough kitchen”, to cook all the recipes contained in Julia Child’s cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". While Julie’s blog is no longer active, it is still on-line and available for reading. Twittering is a cross between texting and blogging. The parent site’s – twitter.com – heading says “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” Honestly, for me, this falls within the range of TMI – too much information. Yet, during the earthquake in Haiti, some of the first reports, some within moments, of what was happening came from twitter users. Perhaps the most used “social network” in use today is Facebook. It is used to tell your friends what is going on in your life, allows you to stay up with family events and allows you to easily share photos and videos with your facebook friends. It is a technology that has been embraced by companies to communicate with their customers, politicians to communicate with their constituents, community residents, and, of course, for friends to communicate with friends. Facebook users can also use “Groups” to promote their individual special interests. Those who have read some of my articles in the past know I am a political conservative. I have become a member of a local group known as “Benton County Advocates” that has hosted a number of town meetings covering everything from healthcare to Iowa’s budget. We use the group to post interesting articles, to post links to unique websites and to host a calendar of upcoming events. It has been a stunning evolution in the ability to communicate with each other. From Marconi’s transmission of a single letter across the Atlantic to being able to film a video on our cell phone and then post it on our facebook page, one can only imagine the future of our social networking experiment. Oops, a new text from my wife: “sweetie, ur cooking 2night, right?” Mmmm – sure, why not.