Previously I blogged about my experiences of social networking done right and ...well wrong.  A while back, the power of social networking got me an interview with 10TV regarding the 70/71 split in downtown Columbus and the 1.6 billion dollar project that should begin soon.  A few phone calls and an hour later, I was talking to Karina Nova about how I make my way home every evening and a good part of my interview made it on the 5pm news.  Nice hu?

In the 90s, the web was new, fresh, untapped (remember those days?).  No one knew what this new "information super highway" could possibly do.  Chat rooms, the "new thing" on the computer, connected people across the world country that you'd never otherwise meet.  It was nothing short of a revolution, a game changer for how people communicate.  But there was a problem with this -- the likelihood of you running into the same person twice wasn't really possible, so the chat room button became a chat room listing.  As chat started to really take off, with categories/theme rooms, email started to tie into this.  You could keep in contact with people that weren't even online!  Everytime you logged in, people expected to hear that "you've got mail!" (AOL was big at one time).  Instant messaging quickly followed and unless you used ICQ, the other person had to be online.  So email/IM was it.

As this was all taking place, some other things were happening that had a lasting, completely changing effect...  1, Corporate world trying to figure out how to make money with this stuff -- how to sell, automate, etc.  2, Computers were becoming a legitimate tool in the work place.  3, Phone's evolved into portable devices that everyone had.  4, We (Americans) weren't working 9 to 5 anymore, taking our work home with us.  So what?  If you can remember back to, say 1980s, we didn't have anything like this.  Communication was ...personal, intimate!  The internet changed that.  You really didn't have to know someone to talk to them, somewhat frequently, and all those people you never really talked to in the first place (cough, relatives, cough) became people among light social interaction on a regular basis.

What does this have to do with social networking?  Everything.  Being social is a human need, without it, you go nuts.  Solitary confinement is a perfect example of this.  The INTERNET HAS made us more social but it's fringe socializing, (very) loose connections, nothing like in the past.  Take a look at your face book/myspace and maybe even your linkedin account.  How many of your friends/contacts do you REALLY know and are really friends with?  Just a quick scan of my accounts, I'm guessing half at best.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, its just the way it is.

Twitter is a little different.  It adds value.  Some will argue that if you post up nothing of value then following you is not necessary -- and I beg to differ.  If someone posts up about their weekend cook out, I find that valuable.  Why?  I learn a little something about that person I may not have known earlier, or even better, I may want to join them.  So how can business leverage this?  Easy, Dell has found a good way to use social networking to get their world onto a direct audience, as have others.  I've even seen a story on TV about people getting better, faster customer service from twitter than the companies phone tree (people HATE those anyway).

Ultimately, it gives you something to talk about with a person you may never would meet or otherwise socialize with.  How many times has someone seen something you posted and asked you about it ... and your first reaction was "how the hell did you know ... ooohhh right!  Yea, the cook out was great, I had ..."  and a conversation starts?  If not, you may not be posting enough :)