Do online social networks lead to more real friendships?
According to Dr. Will Reader and a team of researchers at Sheffield Hallam University, most people who use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace only have, on average, five really close friends.
Ironically enough, that’s the same number most people have offline too.
While the average person on a social networking site can rack up 150 friends, most still only have five or so really close friends. Here is a look at the study’s findings:
Despite this extraordinary flux of making and breaking friendships, the actual number of close friends “is approximately the same as in the face to face world,” said Dr Reader.
There are “good evolutionary reasons” why this should be. Making friendships means investing time, even money, in another person. To ensure that investment is worthwhile, face to face contact is invaluable, he said. But “it is very easy to be deceptive on the internet.”
Of all the sites, the majority - 90 per cent - of close friends have been met face to face. “Face to face contact is a requirement for intimate friendships.”
Now the article doesn’t define exactly what a “close” friend is, so this could be debatable. Based on my personal experience, however, it seems accurate.
And what about that 10 percent of friends who only know one another online?
As for the ten per cent of people who felt close friends with someone that they have never met in real life. “It could be that these people are friends of friends. If someone is a friend of someone who is close to you, that is a good indicator that that person is a decent individual.”
Again, I have to confirm that these findings mesh with my own personal experience.
The few close friendships that I maintain online were initially prompted by a face-to-face meeting, or were very quickly cemented by one.
I have made a few friends strictly online, and in most cases, they were people who knew existing friends of mine.
How does this study apply to your own online experiences? Have you made many close friends with people you’ve only met online? Do you have more than five close online friends?
Moblogging Air Traffic Reports
Mobile phones may be forbidden once the cabin door shuts, but nothing will stop Geek With Laptop blogging travelers from reporting the conditions at airports in the U.S. with new moblogging tools.
I am sure everyone who travels has a horror story or two to share. I fly about once per month, most often for business. Fully 50% of my flights are delayed by at least 15 minutes. Often weather or other conditions out of the airport or airline’s control are to blame.
Whatever the cause, delays are delays and late is late. An hour or two may not be the biggest deal, unless you have a tight connecting flight, but delays of several hours or more can really snarl schedules.
We may not be able to do anything about delayed flights, but Orbitz has decided to put some power in the hands of the people.
With its beta Traveler Update site, not only can travelers post information on airport conditions, but they can also access real-time airport information before arriving.
The site will work best for registered Orbitz users, but anyone can post or retrieve information.
One cool aspect is that registered users’ information can be rated for quality and Orbtiz plans to build an incentive program into the site to award the best contributors.
Of the content available users can find FAA airport and flight status; 30-day average security line wait times; in-airport Wi-Fi availability; and real-time user-generated travel conditions for security lines, traffic, taxi wait lines and check-in lines.
I took the site for a quick spin on my phone. Most of the information was up-to-date. There were some excellent graphs detailing security line wait times.
It even posted traffic conditions around the airport so you can make sure to avoid sitting in your car too long.
All good stuff to know ahead of time, especially for the mobile professional on a tight schedule.
Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean
For the last 14 months, high-tech insiders have been eating up the work of an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and one of the world’s most famous businessmen.
The mysterious writer has used his blog, the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to lampoon Mr. Jobs and his reputation as a difficult and egotistical leader, as well as to skewer other high-tech companies, tech journalists, venture capitalists, open-source software fanatics and Silicon Valley’s overall aura of excess.
The acerbic postings of “Fake Steve,” as he is known, have attracted a plugged-in readership, both the real Mr. Jobs and Bill Gates have acknowledged reading the blog. At the same time, Fake Steve has evaded the best efforts of Silicon Valley’s gossips to discover his real identity.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine who lives near Boston, has been quietly enjoying the attention.
Source: New York Times
WordPress 2.2.2 and 2.0.11 Released
Earlier today the WordPress development team released two security-related distributions available for both users of the main 2.2 branch and the legacy 2.0 branch of WordPress.
According to the official release notes:
As these releases include only security and minor bugfixes they should not cause any plugin or theme compatibility issues, so you have no good excuse not to upgrade.
I already did the upgrade earlier this morning for Geek With Laptop and of course there wasn’t any issues or burps. It went smooth as silk.
Heads up for the people who I maintain WordPress installs for, you’ve also been upgraded to the most current and stable release for the branch your sites are running.
Everyone else who is running WordPress for blogs and regular websites, I highly recommend that you go download the latest release.
It only takes a moment and the upgrade process is really easy.
If you need help, let me know and I’d be happy to assist you in getting your site or blog running the latest and greatest version of WordPress.
Twitter Is The Future Of Presence And Collaboration
When the buzz about Twitter first broke, I was skeptical. I thought it seemed like a lame compromise between IM and blogging. I had no interest in posting short entries about going to the restroom or buying mouthwash in Wal-Mart.
During the first few months this year I watched Twitter, largely from the sidelines. I noticed that Twitter evolved. It became something more than either blogging or IM but I couldn’t figure out what Twitter was turning into.
After playing with Twitter (and cool Twitter tools like TwitterVision), I realized that Twitter is really the future of presence, collaboration and possibly even location.
Twitter breaks open the concept of presence. Instead of being a passive application - i.e. I log onto Skype or an IM client like Yahoo and I show up on all my friend’s buddy lists - Twitter turns presence into an active, participatory forum.
I can broadcast my activities - along with any issues I am having with them - to my social network.
Now, unlike traditional IM clients, you can’t have big Twitter buddy lists of hundreds of random people. I find it doesn’t work that well.
But small groups, say between 5 and 30, are perfect for Twitter-based collaboration. By being able to push out status updates and short questions to tight circles of friends, you can use Twitter as a real-time work tool.
And as I pointed our earlier today, Twitter is optimized for mobile, so it works seamlessly across mobile devices and laptops, making it the first truly seamless mobile presence and collaboration application in one platform.
Since Twitter is so mobile-friendly, it’s also a natural fit for location.
In fact, applications like TwitterVision show how Twitter can add location to presence and collaboration.
Imagine using Twitter to manage a work-group of 15 people spread out over the world or even spread out over one city.
What do you think? Do you think Twitter is the future of presence?
Using Twitter As Business Tool
It was only a matter of time until bloggers and technologists began touting Twitter as a business tool.
I can hear you already: How on earth can a blogging tool that restricts users to only 140 characters be useful for business?
The answer is easy: Twitter is a communications tool. If your business needs to communicate, then it needs to Twitter.
Twitter could be a powerful communications tool for business groups that need live interaction.
Everything from sales and marketing teams to IT could use Twitter to both check their teammates’ availability and to extend their workflows into real-time mass collaboration.
You can achieve all of this while users access Twitter on both mobile devices and desktop PCs with no additional platforms or investment. That’s a truly seamless application experience.
Twitter could make impact the live events business too.
Imagine being able to get real-time updates from all of your business contacts at a big show like CES or CTIA.
I also expect to see Twitter and Twitter-like services make their way into online live events too, where real-time Twitter boards could enhance the level of interaction for happenings like Webinars and videocasts.
What do you think? Can you see Twitter adding value to your business? Or is Twitter nothing more than the latest Web 2.0 flash in the pan?