I've always been one to jump on the latest and greatest social networking sites (my home/status page is testament to this). I like to try out these sites out of my own curiosity, although every time I join a new site, I hesitate for a moment and ask myself, "Why?"

Ever since Six Degrees [now defunct] in the late nineties, I was compelled to make connections with the people I knew, through the magic of the internet. The world wide web made our own worlds smaller, and we were enchanted with the idea of connecting and reconnecting with people from near and far. With Friendster, we saw people get obsessed with collecting friends... some even likened it to Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all!), which was rising in popularity at the same time. Friendster forever changed the definition of the word "Friend".

MySpace brought social networking to a younger (read: mainstream) audience and made itself a part of the vernacular. From then on, it got ridiculous. Social networking sites sprung up faster than anyone could count, and to this day, invitations to join someone's network litter our inboxes, and people foam at the mouth for invitations to the beta version of the newest networking site.

I feel that part of the appeal of social networks is in the ability for those of the introverted persuasion (e.g., geeks and nerds) to be able to connect to many like-minded people. We became social networking junkies, binging on forming online friendships. Why not? It's so easy... we can be friends with someone by simply clicking a button!

Yesterday, I found myself purging my social networks of people I feel little or no connection with. It was still hard for me to delete/remove/de-friend some people from these lists, so I let some of them be. What if they found out I didn't have them in my Friend List anymore? What would I say? How would I explain it? Is it easier to keep them on my Friend List to avoid confrontation? Would this confrontation even exist?

And why the heck am I so worried about this?

I've been re-evaluating many different aspects of my life because of the new year. This recently brings to mind a part of my life that is most certainly a big part of my identity: my online life.

Having not written on my more public, hosted blog in months, I think it may be time to really let this one die. There have been multiple iterations of my blog which has been resurrected many times on different domains. I've gone through MJ's Lifecycle of Bloggers multiple times. But I think this time, it's a more permanent change.

I'm all over the web. I'll admit that I'll jump on a new site's bandwagon very quickly, to try things out and be one of the first to do so... Beta, Gamma, whatever. My love affair with social networking sites comes and goes, and the time that I spend with individual sites varies quite a bit.

I think I have the right idea with my current index (home) page, which is basically an ever-changing page that collects all the information in one place. I guess it's a bit of what Merlin calls a "Status Page". The magic of RSS enables me to have a dynamic page without needing to update it myself. I think I want to take this a step further and have this page be all I have publicly on my domain... my own personal hub, if you will. So this means, the blog on that domain dies. Well, not exactly, it just ceases to be updated and is taken off the main page. The archives will probably remain.

Vox is now going to be my primary blog, but of course, that may be subject to change. Having my dynamic home page seems like a more forgiving way to be able to change blogs and networks. For now, I dig Vox, its features and its community for the most part, and it's been good to me. So, for the time being, this is where I stay.

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On another (but related) note, this also brings up the domains left behind from lives past. If anyone's interested in any of my old domains, let me know. I let the auto-renew cycle, and I honestly don't need them anymore:

• geekychick.net
• endofthetour.com
• sfbaybloggers.com (yup, giving this up too)

Took 'em long enough...

In Teens' Web World, MySpace Is So Last Year

"I've grown out of it," Kim said. "I thought it was kind of pointless."

ya think?

Evan Hansen, a sophomore at Falls Church High School, said he didn't buy into the MySpace hype and is waiting for the craze to die.

"Over time, people are going to get sick of talking to people on the computer," he said. "I just think people will want to spend more time with each other -- without the wall of technology."

OMG, REAL LIFE INTERACTION?

Also found in today's Chron:

Social sites becoming too much of a good thing: Many young folks burning out on online sharing

[Stephanie Chow] still maintains her MySpace page because not all her friends use Facebook. But the blinking advertisements on MySpace have become a turnoff, Chow said.

"I just feel like it's becoming another way for companies to advertise their products," Chow said. "I just feel like I'm being used."

Okay, I know I'm prolly sounding snobby about all this. I never really understood the appeal of MySpace to begin with, with its infamously horrid UI and high school mentality. I had caved and used it because the majority of my non-techie friends use no other site than MySpace.

I like social networking sites, but my purpose in using them has been to enhance RL interactions. I've made it a point to not add people I'm not familiar with, and I feel my experience has been a lot more realistic and fulfilling than the teenage girls that have 400 "friends" on their list.