I'll just say it: I don't like the so-called "social media" aspects of the current Internet. Maybe it's because I've been engaged in online communities for more than twenty years; maybe it's because I'm a misanthrope. I don't use -- nor do I have any interest in -- Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Reddit, or whatever other "social networking" sites are currently in vogue. I'm not particularly interested in meeting new people through these venues, and I'm extremely wary of the so-called "value" they provide. I have my blog, and I'm satisfied with it.

There is a very rigid limit to my capacity for continuous partial attention, so I am extremely conscious about adding new things to follow. I intentionally limit the number of email lists to which I subscribe. I'm very selective about the feeds I add to my news reader. I'm even more selective about who I follow on Twitter; and I refuse to participate in more than one microblogging solution; so Jaiku and Pownce and Tumblr and whatever else is out there are right out.

I recently attended the first Columbus TweetUp, at which Columbus Twitter users had an opportunity to meet one another face-to-face. I felt a bit like an odd-man-out at this gathering in part because many of the attendees seemed to know one another already; but mostly because I wasn't following any of them on Twitter, nor was I likely to do so. I'm simply not interested in reading the goings-on of a dozen or more people just because they happen to live in the same city as me. The (very) occasional gem of insight I might glean from following one or more of them would be almost instantly drowned out in the noise of constant updates and replies to one another.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad that these folks find Twitter (and similar services) so useful. I'm glad that they've found a way to extend their network of contacts. It's just that for me, it's too overwhelming. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I often approach signing up to receive quantities of new information from the "coming back from vacation" point of view. When I come back from vacation, is this stuff going to overwhelm me? Am I going to simply delete huge swaths of this stuff if I get too far behind on it? If so, why am I paying attention to it to begin with? Or maybe I'm simply too mercenary about the matter, looking for what benefit their Twittering and blogging will provide to me. Or maybe I really am just anti-social and not particularly interested in what folks have to say if I don't have an existing meaningful connection to them in some capacity (which begs the question: how do I establish said meaningful relationships with new folks?).

At the TweetUp I did have a very nice conversation with Denise. This was in part due to the seating arrangements -- she was the only person near me who wasn't already engaged in conversation with someone else -- but it was also due to a variety of similarities we share. It was nice to make an acquaintance, and I even started following her on Twitter when I got back to my computer. Thankfully, she updates as infrequently as I do, so I'm not drowning in updates I'm uninterested in reading.

It's ironic that I'm so ambivalent about local technology users communicating with one another, but so enthusiastic about global communications and the wonderful experiences it creates.

I finally signed up for Twitter, though I'm not entirely sure why. I'm following on Twitter all of the people I have in my feed reader; I have a few of them as IM contacts; and I see most of them in IRC #habari most of the day, too. The best analogy for Twitter that I can think of is "asynchronous public messaging". It can be used like instant messaging, where you chat back and forth with contacts, except that it's available for everyone to see and it doesn't happen in realtime.

Some folks use Twitter to post short updates about something that they want to share that might not merit a full blog post. Other folks use Twitter to ask the same question of a group of people. For example, ringmaster asks Philly folks about where to dine: rather than send the same IM or email to all of his contacts, he can put it on Twitter and the folks who follow his Twitter account can reply as they see fit: IM, email, Twitter response, etc. Ringmaster's use of twitter is one of the best that I've seen: he has several groups of online acquaintances and he communicates with them quickly and succinctly through Twitter. I'm not sure that I'll use it nearly as aggressively or effectively, but I'll give it a shot.

Looking around, I see that there are tons of similar ways to support ad-hoc communication for various purposes. In addition to Twitter, there's Tumblr. Some folks use Flickr for quick group chats. Then there are the bigger institutions like Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, etc.

I have a blog, a Flickr account, and now a Twitter account. I'm also on several IM networks. I'm left scratching my head at why I should pursue any of these other channels for connecting with my friends. I'm not interested in meeting new people, particularly, and I'm not a compulsive signer-upper for new online services. What do these new services offer me -- the user -- that is of substantial value over what I already have?

Perhaps I'm overly skeptical: I recognize that most of these online services are commercial ventures, and their driving motivator is to earn money. Some are more commercial than others; some aren't yet as commercial as they're likely to become. Are they truly offering me a new, valuable service, or are they merely offering me something in order to make money off of me, whether that's through paid upgrades, or my eyeballs on their partner's advertisements?