(originally written for a tech blog I used to maintain, updated here)
Old School Conversation
I help moderate an investment forum. You know, a message board, like the ones you used to participate on over at yahoo, or on forum sites that used phpBB and such. They're a dying breed these days since developers have moved on to Web 2.0, and users have moved on to Twitter and Facebook. The problem is, people are posting links, photos, and statuses, but there's very little group conversation in this new paradigm. At best there is a limited one-to-one banter. How did this happen? When it comes to Social Networking, I think startups are focusing on the networking far more than the social. We're connecting, we're posting, but we're not really discussing anything in groups. We've largely altered our interaction to fit the tools we're being given. Don't get me wrong, the tools are very cool and we're able to meet lots of new people and get lots of information easily. But group conversation around specific areas of interest seems to be slipping away, or reserved for those with lots of "followers." I don't know about you but sometimes it feels like you are sitting alone at the lunch table while the cool kids are sitting elsewhere.
I use Facebook alot. It is great for staying in touch with family and friends. I've reconnected with people that I never would have caught up with otherwise. But Facebook is downright lousy for thought-provoking conversation. What is the first rule at your family holiday gatherings? Don't talk politics or religion, right? The fact is that people don't really want to get into deep discussions with family and friends, and particularly not in public! Not to mention that many things in which we are interested are not interesting to many of our "real life" friends. The quickest way for someone to invoke the "Hide" button on you is to continuously get into heavy conversations that show up in their Facebook newsfeed. Naturally we've all learned not to "go there" on Facebook.
Facebook has a group feature, but it has an incredibly archaic feature set. Most people sign up for a group just so the name of it can show up in the newsfeed (Brian just joined the group "I can't live without coffee") and then never visit the page. Facebook's metaphor is basically a balance sheet. It's a snapshot of your life. And I think it works great for that. You can see how I'm doing, I can see how you're doing. In depth group conversation? Not so much.
There's actually a lot of "conversation" that goes on via Twitter, inasmuch as 140 characters at a shot can get you. The problem is that it's mainly one-to-one and you really have to stick with it in near real time to keep track of it. Ever try to have an ongoing discussion amongst a group of people on Twitter? Want to come back to the topic a day or two later? Forget it. On Twitter it's "miss a little, miss alot." Sure, you can make lists and do some other organizational things to distill the tweets, but it's just not set up for group conversation. The "big guns" will disagree with me on that one, but the folks who have thousands of followers and spend their day shooting out "at" replies is really a sport unto itself. Twitter is just not set up for building interest communities and fostering group dialog.
Friendfeed
I came across Friendfeed last summer and it is the closest thing I have found to providing Web 2.0 features and group interaction. You can easily create an interest group, and the posting and rss features are fantastic. You also don't need to "follow" or "friend" someone in order to be a part of the group conversations. But there are many standard forum features that are needed (particularly moderation tools) and of course since Facebook acquired them it seems highly unlikely that we'll see much more development there, if any. Many (many!) people aren't even "on" Friendfeed anymore, they simply push there info there from Twitter, Google Reader etc. Thanks Facebook.
Conversation 2.0
I think there is still a need for people who don't necessarily "know" one another to converse about topics of common interest. I love Web 2.0 Social Networking and its "one stop shopping" model, but I think there should still be room within that model for a little less "me" and a lot more "we." Conversations need to easily threaded, searchable, and open to more than 140 characters. And it needs to be a technology that ties into Facebook and Twitter, because that is where people "are." No one wants even one more account to deal with. Put simply, I'd love to be able to express a concern such as this one somewhere other than a blog post in order to garner other people's thoughts on the matter, but where would that be? Anyone have a time machine?