The next big social networking tool is... Thunderbird?

[Paul King]

> Interesting take... from The Economist, no less.
> 
> http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10880936
> 
> Comments?

I have to gag when I read in their brief "history of the internet" that the 
"online media" world began with the "walled gardens" of AOL and Compuserve. I 
recall back then that there was an irritation among more authentic internet 
users that AOLusers and those others (most people picked on AOL) thought that 
the Internet began and ended with those "walled gardens". Mostly those walled 
gardens were nothing more than whatever it was their desktop interface looked 
like. This was at a time when the "walled garden" users and geeks were about 
equal in number (geeks probably outnumbering them), and Microsoft, Apple and 
UNIX were closer rivals.

This means that the history is more accuately described as something a lot more 
open than a walled garden. And this would effect the narrative a bit. No, there 
were no social networks unless you count USENET (OK, maybe not), and email was 
the chief communications tool. But many people were using these limited tools 
forming social networks through listserves, mailing lists and the like.

Outside of that, it is interesting, but I find the topic of networking to be a 
bit dull for me. I am experimenting with a web log, and I am finding out what a 
numbers game all of this is. I see people taking advantages of loopholes in the 
blog system to ensure that their post is always a "featured post" (yes, I use 
WordPress). I don't have time to play those kinds of games, though, yes, I 
think I know how to "game the system" for myself if I wanted.

Paul King


> 
> - Evan
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