FourSquare

You know, social networking sites are supposed to be fun. Most of them that I have gotten on to make me feel like I want to be there often. Well, except Google+ and Orkut.

FourSquare is the latest one. FourSquare just tries to make things more difficult for the average user. I don’t find good places to log in to – well, I can’t seem to create a check-in for my own apartment.

It’s a bit of a downer. I don’t think I’m going to be using FourSquare too much.

Kapil Sibal – are you nuts?

Read this and this to get an idea about what Mr. Sibal has been talking about. And then read the brilliant FakingNews.com article about the same issue here.

On one hand, Mr. Sibal is saying that he doesn’t want to impede freedom of speech and on the other, he believes that social media websites should screen user content and delete what is ‘offensive’, according to what the Government tells them.

Really, who’s to decide what’s offensive and what’s not? Such things are subjective and I think Sibal threating to censor postings of users itself is ‘offensive’ to the free-thinking public. So…

Don’t you think we are heading closer and closer to the situations in China and/or North Korea if this is implemented?

I want to end this with a gem of a tweet from Sidin Vadukut - @sidin: Kapil Sibal is an idiot. RT while this is still legal.

Social media updates and work

Read this first.

So, people get fired if they state something negative about their work environment. Workplaces are also penning in clauses in the contract to avoid defamation by their employees. But doesn’t this go both ways?

What if an employee wants to say something good about the employer? If that can be allowed, then the opposite should also be allowed.

In my own case, I use humor and sarcasm in every aspect of my social life. Once, I was warned to not repeat some clever sarcastic wordplay because my ‘then’ manager thought that it was inappropriate.

So, I’m confused.

Four degrees of separation

This is fascinating reading. But I’m not quite sure if I can still believe it. In summary, this article published on FaceBook states that any two individuals on our planet are separated by an average of four connections. Previously, it was considered to by six. But now, with the advent of social networking, it has decreased.

This means that you are four friendship clicks away from befriending anyone on the planet, if they were all on FaceBook. Crazy, but scary too.

Google+

The whole world has been talking about and I have been dying to get into it. I finally did that today. And I was impressed. Google+, the latest and the best effort by the search engine giant, to enter into the social networking space.

It’s a clean interface and I’m still getting used to dragging people into Circles. I haven’t tried hangouts yet. The news feed is primarily geeky stuff related to Google+ itself. Compared to FaceBook, they have got privacy up front. That way, they have succeeded.

But it’s still grossly underpopulated and undertested. Will it be compatible with FaceBook and Twitter. Would we need to update Google+ separately (the others have integration features). Only, time will tell.

Until then, ummm… I don’t know, I might give it the same attention as I give to Twitter and Facebook.

Discussion Confidants

I read about the new Pew Research Center’s study findings about social networking sites and their impact on our social life. Please go to the link to read the full story

The one interesting thing that I found in the study is that an average American citizen has just two close people in their lives with whom they share their intimate details. I think I have something like a dozen or so people with whom I’m very open about my problems. But not everything to all of them. Does that mean that I don’t even have a single discussion confidant in my life? Weird!