Apparently, we have neighbors whom we have never heard of. According to “The Social Neighbors” infographic, Turntable and Path are social media sites. We looked for them in Wikipedia’s “List of Social Networking Websites” but found neither. However, a further search showed that Path is headquartered in San Francisco (so it truly is our neighbor), although the overwhelming number of people who use it are in Indonesia. Turntable started a few months previously to the publication of this infographic, but became defunct about two years after that. So much for the neighborhood!
As always, what is glaring is what is left out of an infographic. In this case, it is LinkedIn. This is especially peculiar because, even though it may or may not have many users–it is not in Wikipedia’s “List of virtual communities with more than 100 million active users, even though Wikipedia’s own article about LinkedIn states that it has over ⅓ billion users–LinkedIn can be made into a stereotype, which seems to be the focus of this infograph.
It also does not have the numerous Chinese websites that have over 100 million users. We suppose, though, that this is understandable since this site is geared toward English speakers and readers, and therefore will be less likely to have Chinese neighbors (unless, of course, you are in San Francisco).
We have found, though, that we are already our own neighbors. As humans, we tend to associate with those who are similar to us, and that applies whether we are online or in real life.
Likes: The description of Twitter neighbors; we feel that it is spot-on.
Dislikes: The layout could’ve been different.
An ongoing discussion at Column Five HQ is ”What if social media manifested itself in real life?” It’s a question that addresses much of our personal and professional lives and can be characterized as constant noise, new trends, and the occasionally absurd, among other things. Via: Column Five
