Dancing Queen
I am hearing the song “Dancing Queen” by Abba.
Here is a quick review of Ning. Actually, it’s not so much a review of Ning itself, but really a review of the “education” network that has been created with Ning.
As Metcalfe once said about telecommunications networks: a network is only as valuable as the number of nodes on the network. Although there are now thousands of people who participate in Ning’s educational social network, there isn’t a high enough concentration there of “my kind” to make it worth my while to join.
I am a technology coordinator, a teacher of computer science and technology. I did a quick search in the forums looking for topics that would fit the things that I do in classes, and I didn’t come up with anything. I browsed through the groups, and I didn’t find anything immediately useful for my situation.
I could join and encourage my colleagues to join, but we already have our own networks. I belong to iSkoodle which is a social network where I exchange ideas and concerns with colleagues in the same geographic area. It has been up for over two years now, and it has been quite helpful. Further, I have friends in Facebook with whom I keep in contact and exchange ideas.
At this point and time I’m operating on social network overload… I think that this will continue to be a growing problem over time for everyone. It’s a bit similar to the mid-nineties when everyone had several email addresses. At some point we reduced complexity and the number of logins. I’m going through a phase where I’m trying to reduce the number of social network logins that I have to manage. Further, I’m developing criteria by which I can judge whether or not I buy into a social network. My test:
- Which social networks should I invest time in?
- How many logins can I realistically keep track of?
- Does the social network have the “right” people?
- Does it have sufficient sufficient social momentum?
- What sort of application extensions are being developed for this social network?
- What happens to my content when I move on to the next, better social network?
