Refreshing

When I was younger, I used too feel I had to go out. I had to meet my friends in bars, parks and squares to have a drink and socialize. I felt this way because I had the feeling that when I was not there, I was missing out. This feeling of not wanting to miss out was so powerful that for some time I argued with my parents in the middle of the night, because they were not agreeing with me going out yet again. This is called puberty.

Tagged with: curiosity, social network sites, facebook,

LinkedIn: rubbing shoulders and outbidding one another

I thoroughly enjoy LinkedIn. It functions as my CRM, I can keep track on who’s following me and I can connect to interesting people with whom I can make more meaningful connections at a later stage. I also use LinkedIn to show my profile to the world of business. But, lately something about LinkedIn has been nagging me.

Tagged with: linkedin, social network sites,

I'm less than 5 steps away from Kevin Bacon, now what?

This week, researchers at Facebook and the University of Milan published a study which concludes that the degrees of separation between any two people in the world is no longer the famous six degrees of separation. We are actually more connected than ever. The number has been reduced to 4.7. The study, which measured how many friends people have on Facebook, found that the notion of six degrees of separation had been shrinking over the past three years at the same time as the dominant social network bumped up its userbase. The study itself is unique in itself, the researchers used the actual Facebook data, 721 million active users and a staggering 69 billion friendships among them. This is the largest social network study ever released. 

Tagged with: study, social network sites, facebook,

Like!

I like a lot of things. I like snowboarding, I like to have a drink with friends, I like to have a good conversation, I like lobster, I like good wine, and so on and so on. People that know me well, know what I like. The basis of friendship is liking each other and doing things together you both like or love doing. Friendship starts when you’re doing something you like doing and meet someone with the same “likes”, we call the “interests” mostly. The same counts for doing things you loathe doing as well. This of course fits in the day and night equation(if there’s nothing to loathe, there’s nothing to like). This is the basis for fraternity or sorority initiation, make a bunch of people do stuff they loathe and the start liking eachother. This is also known as teambuilding. My point? Liking or loathing is a very big part of our social life, maybe even the very base of having one.

Tagged with: like, social network sites, facebook, social media,

A trip down memory lane

Last week the faculty of communication and journalism organized a staff trip to see the movie ‘the social network’ in Pathé Rembrandt Utrecht. The movie focuses on the creation of Facebook, a popular social network site (for those who lived in a cave the last seven years).
At first I was reluctant to go to the movie at all assuming it was a mere movie about sex, drugs and rock and roll with a Silicone Valley touch. I was wrong… It was techno-music. The faculty asked me to participate in a panel discussion about social media and social networks afterwards so I had to go. Forming a panel could and should be a movie on itself but eventually a panel was formed. With little expectation I entered the movie theater.

Tagged with: stick-it, social network sites, facebook, business models,

I am Niniane Veldhoen, and I am addicted to Mafia Wars

A few months ago, I discovered the fun off facebook. I have had an account for years, but I was never active. I was a big fan of hyves, so I didn’t really need facebook. I only used facebook to keep in contact with my friends from abroad. It wasn’t until two of my colleges asked me to join their mafia gang on the social game ‘mafia wars’, that I started using facebook daily.

Tagged with: mafia wars, social games, social network sites, hyves, facebook,