Blogs VS Social Networks
My friend Kent just wrote a very interesting post on Blogs VS Social Networks. He discusses Jay Neely’s belief that the difference between social networks and blogs is that one is for your friends and the other is for your audience. Jay also writes:
“The key difference is that one group already knows you (it’s easy to replace “friends” with “coworkers”, “family”, “neighbors”, etc).”
In his post, Kent disagrees with Jay, saying:
“Jay says bloggers write for their audience. Clearly some do, like Guy Kawasaki, the folks at Mashable and other bloggers with one foot remaining in the old media pool. But lots of other bloggers are writing not merely to have a soapbox, but for the multi-way conversations that are a central part of the blogging experience. Robert Scoble is the best example of a popular blogger who, it seems to me, approaches blogging from this perspective. Doc Searls is another.”
He adds:
“…the community that develops via cross-blogging is so much more meaningful than merely adding a few hundred “friends” to the botton of your butt ugly MySpace page. When I visit MySpace I see very little that looks like a real community. Mostly, I see a gallery of bad web design.”
Kent, I agree. Partly.
I agree with you that when I write on my blog, I don’t feel like I am writing for an “audience”. I feel like I am writing for my readers. It’s a personal thing for me and I enjoy talking to and interacting my readers.
Regarding blogging vs social networks, I have made as many good friends from blogging (you, for example) as I have from being on the different social networks. I don’t think my friends on the social networks know me better than those I met through my blog. If anything, those who read my writings probably have a better sense of my beliefs and values. My readers are making much more of an effort to get to know me than simply clicking on a button that says “add as friend”. However some people on the various social networks have made a real effort to get to know me and those are the people that I have made strong connections with. I believe that through both tools I have made close, personal relationships with very interesting people. I think making those connections is more dependent on the individuals themselves than the tool presented.
Thanks to babybluebbw for the pic.
Technorati tags: kent newsome, blog, social network, jay neely, community, guy kawaski, mashable, robert scoble, doc searls, myspace, friends
