Posts Tagged ‘LinkedIn’

With all the options to connect to people, save links and blogs, read articles, store data, search for information, and do just about anything else on the computer, it is all starting to seem a bit overwhelming. Too many ways to access data means too much time on the computer and lack of efficiency.

To be honest, I love technology and am usually one of the first to try something new. Lately though, the options have become too numerous and it is hard to keep track. It is no longer just finding something that is better and using it. Programs and applications on the web (especially networking sites) change with fads. A good example is Myspace and Facebook. Myspace was one of the largest networking sites growing at an amazing rate, and then it stopped being popular. It is true that it wasn’t really that well designed, but more than that it just wasn’t “cool” anymore. People started switching to facebook.

On one hand all the options are good. It means that you can communicate he way you like. The bad part is it means that you will spend more time on the computer and internet keeping track of your contact and making sure that you are using the same applications and sites as your friends. It takes time to get design your site the way you like it and build up your fiends, and then when a new site starts you have to do it all over again. Then there are others like LinkedIn or Plaxo. No one wants to keep 3 or 4 address books, but that’s exactly what we are doing.

Then there are all of the websites that allow you to track and share links make various functions easier. These would include Evernote, Del.icio.us, twitter, Stumble, and Digg. You can see a full list at Go2Web20.net.

Having to many options makes the web and the computer much less efficient. People are building a lot of niche applications that have a purpose, but aren’t important enough to fuinction alone. So many of them become popular and then fade away.

I think what we should work towards for what everyone is calling web 3.0 is consolidation and simplicity. Less signing up and more efficiency.

As the internet seems to be continuously expanding, there are more and more ways to connect. There is MySpace, Facebook, Mixi, LinkedIn,Twitter, Iknow, and many more just to name a few. There are so many in fact that it is hard to keep track. In addition, most people seem to switch between them so quick you are constantly having to create a new password just to keep in touch.

I will admit that many of them have gotten much better and easier to use. I feel that LinkedIn and Facebook are much cleaner and user friendly than MySpace and we seem to be heading in the right direction. They allow us to keep in touch with people from all over the world, but in some ways the relationships aren’t as close as they used to be. We spend less time eating out and meeting with our friends because we are spending all of our time leaving comments on their virtual walls.

Clifford Stall makes some great points in his TED speech that kids will have a great understanding of technology, but will never have gone bowling together. It’s quite sad really. You can watch his full video below.

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