I remember when I started working at Microsoft. Everyone there used MSN Messenger (if they used IM… most didn’t at first) and I was the new guy from college that used AIM because all my friends where there. If a friend was on both AIM and MSN I added them twice so that no matter what app I was using my friends list was as consistent as possible. Those days are gone.
Yes, I’m on linked-in, jobster, orkut, etc, but I’m no longer going to accept friend requests on those networks. I can only manage one at a time and feel like I’m really getting value out of it. So I’m going to stick with Facebook so I can avoid feeling like this guy.
Adding Friends is a Full Time Job and I’m sick of it…
…I have spent a lot of time adding friends on Facebook – I have used it to reconnect with people from eras throughout my entire life and I have poured days of time into the effort. I have done it to a certain extent on Twitter, where I have a pretty solid snapshot of my industry colleagues. I have done it with my MSN friends list, but it is becoming less important these days as I forget who most of the people I have added are – there is very little context with traditional chat applications as you have to rely on remembering silly screen names.
Then I thought, what about everything else, like Xbox Live, Finetune, LastFM, AIM, MySpace, and so many many more.
This has turned into a nightmare.
It is clear to me as an experience designer and strategist that the social web cannot keep continuing down this road. Eventually everyone will be sick and tired of this arduous process, and users/contributors will quickly be frustrated and turned away from our applications; the very ones that are supposed to rock!