On social networking:

Nobody likes social networking any more. So early zeroes. This is the late zeroes. So what are people doing post-social-networking?

Post-social-networking.

It's important that the term is double-hyphenated so it refers to what comes after social networking, not to a kind of networking destined to supersede the social. I can't exactly grasp what "post-social" would mean.

After an extreme day of social networking, I'm tired. So then I look forward to some post-social-networking chill time.

I can't figure out any compelling reason to create public information on social networking networks, but I still maintain it out there. It has pictures, it has feeds, it's interactive, sort of a master tamagochi that takes charge of me rather than me tending it. People can send me stuff, like e-mail. But unlike e-mail social networks are places to represent identity, not only to send messages. So I can put up photos and stuff and show other people things I'm working on.

So this is why an otherwise lame-ass way to spend time seems to the user to be sort of interesting. The reason previous social-networking tools such as phones and e-mail now seem undesirable is that they lack interactivity beyond their obvious basic functions. Not like you can't put games on a phone, but that's not as good as a camera because a phone is a social-networking device: it's for calling people and for them to call you. Sending a crappy picture is just another type of phone call, possibly more cool than just a regular phone call. But calling a person on a phone is automatic, lacking in richness, kind of boring, but it can't get that much richer and still be a phone call. An e-mail, a text message, other transactional communication is similar. Efficient, but kind of constraining. That's the old kind of social networking. Pale0-social (Even more paleo would be bulletin boards, an ancient but oddly perfect social networking tool if you don't mind text-only).

Advanced interactivity is what makes social networking different. Everyone is familiar with the interactive qualities of software, the way the software responds to actions, the impression you get of it as you try to use it. Ever since the early psychology game programs like Eliza, interaction has been an interesting problem for AI, and has found practical application in numerous areas.

Being networked to other people is the most obvious interactive component of social networking, but the medium or infrastructure has its own role in facilitating this. At one time minimizing the interference of programming artifacts on the user was a goal for some programmers: getting out of the way of users' natural ways of working. Others preferred to ignore those considerations, instead creating ugly awkward software.

Thinking now has shifted to encourage a more engaged interactive approach: the program teaches you how to use it. The social networking site keeps asking you to do different kinds of things: install an application, join a group, vote on some thing or other, and otherwise share your information. But you don't always have to do what's asked of you, numerous other activities are available: upload photos, investigate more about the site, look for other people, blog. And your choices made permanent and displayed to your social network, so you and other group members share experiences.