The messages and threads in social media and networks have been pretty intense in the last week or so. I thought it appropriate to bring back a really good conversation we had last year about happiness.
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Have all the social bookmarking services brought you closer to great content, or has it just added to your workload?
Are your online relationships as productive or satisfying as your real ones? And if the answer here is "yes," do you have many real relationships?
Has Web 2.0 empowered your customer service people -- or just thinned out traditional marketing and personnel budgets?
Are email, Twitter, and IM services helping you to communicate better -- or just flooding you with noise?
There's a lot great about new web tools. But unless we master them -- and not the other way around -- Web 2.0 will be remembered as just another fad.
What works for you in Web 2.0 -- and what doesn't?
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When we had this conversation, there were amazing responses. A few pearls of wisdom from the previous discussion:
Luis Sandoval - Web 2.0 has always been promising, don't get me wrong. The expansion of ideas is great, but there seems to be more emphasis now on be the "It" thing that users are left behind to deal with the confusing aspects of adapting.
Ricardo Bueno - There are only so many hours in the day and your blog is a resource that's available 24/7. When you think about it, it's a unique resource that way. I like it for that reason but I also don't let it eliminate the personal aspect of my marketing (I still like to meet face-to-face).
Je' Maverick - I really love this post, and thank you for raising the questions. Does it add noise? Yes. Is this noise enriching? No. It has arrested my focus. Web 2.0 as we know it has only delivered a lot of extra task management quandaries to me. I would prefer to shift my focus back to delivering content. I can only say that it is not marketing - it is advertising.
Jens KH - does it make you happier? yes, it does.
because it tears down - or at least fundamentally challenges - some old parameters of identity construction, which in simple words are build on "the others" versus "you (and your buddies)".
the web as we can experience it today shows us that we are the others and that the others are us.
orientation within the new web - and amongst all of its players - puts more of an emphasis on similarities to ourselves (which make us come back to a site) rather than on dissimilarities (which do not attract us and which for us in consequence make a certain web offer disappear forever in the infinite space of the internet).
so - and this is terribly important - we consciously build our identity on similarities=love=acceptance rather than on "you are different from me because you look different, you speak different, you are not me and THEREFORE i am me" (this is basic sociology on identity building).
the new web globally challenges this. not only does it challenge these modalities of identity building - it qualifies them as belonging to a time past.
the new equation goes: i am because you are.
- i am me because you are like me.
this is a tremendous difference.
and, yes, it makes us - and everybody - fundamentally more happy.
Chris Baskind - Web 2.0 would be awesome if it actually worked. ;-)
Derrick Kwa - I think Web 2.0 doesn't necessarily bring about deeper relationships. But what it allows is a broader range of relationships. Without Web 2.0, for example, I would never have been able to connect with you. The value comes in that it breaks down practically all barriers for connecting with others.
Jon Burg - Happiness is a state of mind. Web 2.0 cannot make anyone happier. People can and should be happy because of who they are, despite any hardships and frustrations they endure in their lives.[...] Personally, I enjoy web 2.0. It has been a pleasure getting to know the greater community, to share ideas, to learn, to experience the wonder that is mass personal and social communication.
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What about you? Has Web 2.0 made you happier?
[image of moments before sunrise by slack12]