The geosocial universe [infographic]
Posted by staff / August 22, 2010Jesse Thomas of award-winning creative agency Jess3 created a handy visual of the size of the internet’s behemoths—including Skype, Facebook, Yahoo Mail—and new tech companies on the scene like Foursquare and BrightKite. The infographic also includes a visualization of each company’s proportion of users who access the service through a mobile gadget.
Via Gigaom.
I have been active in/on the Internet for a couple of decades. My first two "communities were reached through telnet, they were The Well, and then CompuServe (famous for releasing a photo format, GIF, which it didn’t own. And, I like the idea of how the Web and ‘net can be social. I am on Linked-in. I am on Foursquare, sometimes, even Google’s Latitude. But, those programs were not meant to really run on my Blackberry 8300. They do, but the battery just goes away. I could go from a week to a day. So, they stay off. Plus, if I am out, then I am with someone, so I won’t pick up a call or check the programs. Maybe if I am by myself. If I am home, I don’t even have my phone on. Call me at home, and if you don’t want to speak, send an email.
No matter, it has been fun watching these hundreds and hundreds of sites find themselves, even the one which let you make up your own community. That could be fun for college kids, families living all over the country or not. As much as I enjoyed seeing people have fun on them, I just stayed away from Facebook. I have NO reason, I just didn’t get a good vibe. Silly, I know, but it is true. After I got out of the hospital not to long ago, my God Daughter talked me into trying Facebook. Within seconds – I mean it – all of these messages came at me, I didn’t even know many of them, and others lived next door. Heck, just come over, with a pie or with the real you. Within another 5 minutes I was out of there. Then, using a few programs I have, I tried to erase the fact that I was on it even for a grand total of seven minutes. I like to socialize. But, I like some control over it. Not to be rude and have things only on my terms, but, I don’t like a big conglomeration run by a few people who haven’t experienced enough of life to really understand the concept of privacy, of being alone and enjoying it, but worse, just to me, can’t prove it, don’t sue. It just seems that they don’t care about your privacy. They are richer than I will ever be in monetary terms, but, I will take my riches in the relationships I have with my family, partner, real friends, and those I have yet to meet.
Just to make it clear, I am not knocking social Web communities, they can be great. I just don’t want to belong to one which decides for me how much privacy I may have, and if I don’t want all of the non-requested socialization, I have to find a great Web site to tell me how to get back some semblance of my social life.
Maybe I am way off board on this, but, it works for me. I jump on Twitter, but don’t follow it, I do like Glue, but more, I like Miro, which introduces me to films, from documentaries of the world to the latest James Bond flick. Heck, I still like fun.