Real Networking
F for Fake
With social networking tools on the rise online, striking a conversation with people is a breeze. You could, write on his/her wall, comment on some thing posted by a friend (whether it's a link, photo, video or note to quote from Facebook's variety of stuff shared), or poke the person, leave a message in his/her virtual pet's house in Pet Society, send a message to his/her virtual restaurant in Restaurant City, give him/her some Chinese Lion sculpture in Mafia Wars and the list goes on. On the other hand, the real networking probably got harder, like what is mentioned on in this article from Icebreaker Dept, The New Yorker.
It is interesting that nowadays when we meet friends we converse about virtual stuff like, "Hey your pet has got new clothes," or "When was the last time you logged into your Restaurant Bro, your employees are dying!". Those are statements made with reference to the most popular games on Facebook by Playfish. Indeed, before you enter the university or perhaps a new course, you might already have a bunch of 'friends' you've never met and when it comes to the real networking, things becomes harder. Without the copper wires, fiber-optics, Internet connection, computer interface as barriers, nothing blocks our your expression or hides what exactly you're doing. While chatting online, you might take ages to think of a response and mask it with a 'Sorry I went to the loo' sort of excuse; or that you may make a disgusted expression on your face when you see your friend's photo but then go on to type: "Cool. Good Shot!" on the comments box. In other words, hypocrisy is easy online.
And the picture is probably the same on the side of the developers of these platforms. 'Tweeting all the way to the bank' from The Economist suggests the need for the bosses of these social networking platform firms to balance both appeal to users and the need to source for avenues on these platforms to make money for the long term sustainability of the firm. They got to keep users happy and still pocket their money conveniently.