Has the Social Network Exodus Begun?

** UPDATES to this post at the bottom **

It's official: Michael Bailey is off MySpace and Facebook.

If you don't know Michael personally, you've probably never been to a social media function. I've known Michael to pop up at PodCamps from Boston to Pittsburgh, and at VON in San Jose and PME in SoCal -- all from his homebase in Missouri. For quite awhile, Michael has been one of the few active cross-coast socializers originating from the Midwest.

And he just admitted today that it's mostly bullshit.

Now, granted, Michael has been known to ruffle feathers. Michael is a pot-stirrer, like myself, and is often just as interested in seeing HOW people react as he is in WHAT they actually have to say.

But he brings up a great point, via Twitter:

When you lower the bar of what really matters and what is important, things like social networks crop up like weeds... You all know how to get ahold of me, you have my email address, my cell #, my address. If it matters, reach out, attach yourself.

Let's ignore, for the moment, the fact that not EVERY interaction requires a phone call or an email. (Michael himself would admit that.) The bigger question is:

What PURPOSE Do Social Networks Serve in our Daily Lives?

I myself never use MySpace for personal communication anymore. When I started blogging and Twittering, MySpace lost out in the time sink.

I've also not bothered to join Facebook. Surprisingly, I'm still alive, healthy and getting work.

LinkedIN? The most it's done for me is pepper my inbox with arbitrary questions from people I barely know, about job openings or tech issues. No real traction there.

Pownce? Never bothered.

Delicious? Haven't used it in years.

What Michael (and I) seems to be saying is: the signal-to-noise ratio (god, I love Web 2.0 buzzwords; perhaps they'll someday have a Smithsonian display all their own) is reaching the point of pointlessness.

I've heard many people, myself included, muse about the possibility of deleting their MySpace accounts, now that they've essentially become spam boxes. Perhaps there's a temptation to migrate to Facebook, or whatever else comes next.

But, for people like Michael, perhaps Seth Porges is right -- perhaps social networking is a trend that's about to end.

Do YOU still need YOUR MySpace account?

(Side note: In the earlier days of Twitter, when the system was even buggier [if that's possible], there was a massive one-day defection to Jaiku. It was led by Chris Brogan and Robert Scoble, two of the most influential social media voices. And, of course, when Twitter came back, so did everyone else.

Had they stayed gone, what would have happened to Twitter?

Michael Bailey isn't as much of an inciter as Scoble or Brogan, but his point is much more valid. I'm interested to see if there's a tipping point here, and how close Michael comes to it.)

** UPDATE (8:27 PM Oct 3rd): I just canceled my MySpace account as well. Odd, how a service I once spent so much time on is now something I avoid at all costs. Granted, when I started on MySpace (in 2004), I was single and the service was new -- two great hooks to occupy my time. But now, I have so many other ways to keep up with people, I just don't NEED MySpace.

I still have an STBD account there, though. Why? Because that's the only way some people watch our show, so as long as there's an STBD, there might as well be an STBD MySpace...

TwitterAir Meets Cambodia

When Michael Bailey decided to try a group donation experiment to buy me an air conditioner (thanks again, Mike, Jim, Amy and everyone else who contributed), he based that idea off a similar concept: Beth Kanter's Cambodia Blogging Summit, in which she was seeking $4,000 from her readers to help fund an event that will give Cambodian students, workers and media sources the training and encouragement necessary to join the global social media movement.

This morning, I noticed via Twitter that Beth needed another $57 to meet her $4,000 goal. So I chipped in $65 (unsure if PayPal would keep some or not -- it didn't), putting her over the top. Now the event can move forward as planned, and Michael Bailey and Beth Kanter can BOTH sleep easy, knowing that the power of interpersonal fundraising is alive and well in the social media community.

I know $65 isn't the same as a new air conditioner, but I think it might have an even bigger impact in the long run, don't you?

Next?

Justin in Atlanta

I'll be in Atlanta, GA, next Wednesday. A few social media folks, including Steve Garfield, Michael Bailey, Vergel Evans and myself, will be meeting with several of Atlanta's new media stars (including PodCamp Atlanta co-organizer Amber Rhea) at Manuel's that evening.

Care to join us?

Video on the Net: The Personal Recap

As with all things web media, it seems like the residual energy from a major event like VON is yet another "snack-based" item, something that dissipates quicker than it should.

It's logical, considering there are another 20 items vying for my attention the day I step off the plane and return to my "normal" life. But, fortunately, that residual energy doesn't fade away completely; it just wanes, ever so slowly, while my attentions are diverted.

So, before the memories fade completely, let me regale you with my personal recollection of the event. Will this be instructive? Doubtful. Will it make you wish you were there? Quite possibly.

I Love People

I'm a social guy. Drop me in a room full of interesting people and I'll find a million ways to amuse myself.

I'm not always the chattiest guy, nor am I someone who feels compelled to meet everyone within eyesight, but I do enjoy finding out what makes people tick.

At VON, I was fortunate to spend most of my time with people I either already knew and valued, or people I met and grew to appreciate in a very short amount of time.

Old Faces

- Chris Brogan, who made the world go 'round

- Jeff Pulver, who provided the gravity (and the raison d'etre)

- Steve Garfield, who continues to pioneer strange and wonderful new ways to use new media

- Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad, who continues to strike fear in the hearts of insincere videobloggers everywhere

- Jim Kirks of The Clip Show, who remains one of the web's best "undiscovered" personalities

- Michael Bailey of MobaSoft, who has become nearly ubiquitous on the new media social scene. If there's a podcasting event, chances are Michael is on the guest list.

New Faces

- Clintus McGintus, who went from complete stranger to "my roommate" in the span of five minutes. One of the nicest human beings I've ever met, and without an ounce of pretense to muddy the picture. Great guy.

- Sarah Atwood, one half of Nontourage and co-star of the short-lived (but perhaps resuscitatable?) Vloggy-winning podcast Almost There. The female foil for many male egos in San Jose, Sarah proved her worth to the firm time and again.

- Grace Piper, whose Fearless Cooking podcast is truly the work of a woman to be reckoned with. Especially if you're a squid. (AKA Winner of $200 in a hit-and-run poker game at the after-party...)

- Jim Long, whose 17 years of experience as an NBC cameraman have prepared him well for this world of on-the-fly information gathering. Smart, friendly and self-deprecating to a fault.

- Casey McKinnon, the female half of Galacticast. (We'd actually met at PodCamp Boston, but I wasn't in the business of being memorable at that time.)

- French Maid TV's Tim Street, whom I'd also met at the Yahoo Halloween party in October. (Again, I tend to blend in quietly unless provoked.)

- Roxanne Darling, star of Beach Walks with Rox, who is every bit as calming and visibly wise in person as she is when following nature's paths in Hawaii.

- Schlomo Rabinowitz, "enabler to the podcasting stars of tomorrow." Also knows the right time for shots of Jameson. (Answer: always.)

- Toronto podcaster Vergel Evans, who was easily the silver medalist behind Clintus in the "nicest guy / happiest to be here" 100 metre dash.

- YouTube juggernaut Mark Day, who's nowhere near as blood-curdlingly intimidating as I expected him to be when left alone with him for the better part of an hour. Turns out all he needs is a good chaperone through the technological landscape and he's content.

- Nick Douglas, vlogstar of Look Shiny. We thought for quite awhile that we knew each other. Nope. Just turns out I'd seen Look Shiny recently and thought I knew him. You get that a lot in web video...

- Scott Simpson of iTunes, who -- in addition to being generally hilarious in a completely deadpan manner -- told what shall go down in history as, easily, the most paralyzingly funny story at the VON "after-party" circuit. I've tried replicating the moment with several audiences myself and failed; Scott sets a new bar for "dry delivery."

There were dozens of other folks I had a great time with, and whose brains I picked endlessly for some truly fascinating conversations. But many of them are executives or lawyers or other "behind-the-scenes" people, so I'll spare them the association with a blog post that's shaping up to be more "Entertainment Tonight" than "Inside the Actor's Studio."

If I've failed to mention any of the other wonderful people I met and enjoyed the company of at VON, by all means, consider yourselves lucky to remain anonymous.

The Inside Stuff

So, wondering what exactly goes on among a group of half-drunk pseudo-celebrities such as ourselves at an event like this? Here are, in no particular order -- and in no way guaranteed to make complete sense -- what I recall as some of the highlights of my week in San Jose:

- Arrive in San Jose. Make my way to the hotel. Bump into Steve Garfield, Blip TV's Dina Kaplan and others in the hallway outside the "beta party" suite. Dina talks to me for a few sentences before we both realize she doesn't recognize me. Last time we hung out, my hair was about 6 inches shorter. It takes Garfield, who'd lost his voice after SXSW, to explain who I was in pantomime.

- Pulver party suite: booze, piano, poker. Lots of food. Lots more liquor, mostly in people. People who are playing Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero...

- I'm supposed to share a speaking slot with Garfield and Conley. We ask each other what we intend to speak about.

Garfield? The ease and impact of videoblogging with consumer-level equipment.

Kownacki? How to create engaging, sustainable episodic content.

Conley? "I'm just gonna walk up there, kick over the podium and let them all know they're full of shit."

Sounds like a well-rounded presentation...

- At VON, looking for a plug for my laptop. The only one I can find is being occupied by BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis. I momentarily consider asking if I can share his outlet, but some obscure form of "don't talk to the A-listers" stigma prevents me from doing so -- which is odd, considering Jarvis is quite a normal guy. Instead, I blog from the presentation room floor until my battery dies, while Jarvis makes small talk with VON honcho (and raconteur) Andrew Lipson -- not even using the computer that's plugged in.

- Wednesday morning. 11 AM. Garfield, Conley and I are due to speak in 15 minutes. My cell phone rings. It's Conley.

"Where are you?" I ask.

"Walking over from the hotel. I never set the alarm. Where is everybody?"

"Waiting for you to speak."

"Oh... Is there any juice?"

- Walking to a nearby Mexican restaurant on a beautiful spring evening with Kirks and Atwood. Says Kirks, apropos of nothing and with complete contentment, "We're gonna die tonight." This strikes all three of us as being perfectly agreeable.

- Never one to look a gift premonition in the mouth, we later find ourselves (and several of the others mentioned above) standing in a Jack-in-the-Box at 2 AM in the part of town that, it can charitably be said, "is where you get shot."

Never before has Michael Bailey taken SO LONG to open a straw wrapper. Seriously. The entire time, all that's going through my mind is the donut shop scene from Boogie Nights. Fortunately, we escape unscathed...

- A cheerful homeless guy asked us if we had "$100,000." As Jim Kirks noted, that's a bum with aspirations.

- Discussing (and toasting to) agnosticism with Conley and McKinnon as the "little people" at VON -- the actual service workers at the convention center, who REALLY make the event happen -- worked their tails off around us.

- Clintus's shrewd manner of ordering rounds of tequila shots when no one's looking. (Somewhere, never to be Flickr'd, there's a photograph of Atwood doing the tango with a parking meter...)

- Upon cashing out from the Mexican place (Chacho's, I now recall), we eyeballed the check. $1,400? $1,200 of which was for alcohol? Our stomachs dropped.

"How many tequila shots did you ORDER?"

"Who's got Pulver's number?"

Fortunately, the error was soon spotted: the cashier had accidentally cashed out the ENTIRE OPEN BAR to our party. Whoops. Situation amended, no bail money needed.

- Observation from Scott Simpson: "If a plane is allowed to fly lower than 500 feet above your downtown, you don't actually live in a city."

- When I die, I want to come back as Jim Kirks's hair. It's uncanny. That sh*t could survive a wind tunnel unscathed.

- And, of course, my now semi-legendary "drunken fan moment" involving the Pitt men's basketball team.

In Closing

Perhaps the signature moment of the entire week came at the end, when the roll call was down to me, Sarah Atwood and Grace Piper as the only three entities left behind after the masses had flown home.

My flight wasn't until 10:45 PM, so I crashed in Atwood's hotel room and watched some NCAA basketball while she labeled Flickr photos. We'd agreed to grab Grace for one final drink before I hit the road to the airport.

At halftime of the Pitt / UCLA game, we headed down to the bar. I texted Grace on the way:

"Drinks @ Fairmont."

Within seconds, she texted back:

"Already in bath with martini. Good luck!"

Rock stars. We may not yet be them, but for a few weeks every year, we can certainly live like them...