How Can I Miss You If You Don't Go Away?

from SiliconValley.com
Good Morning Silicon Valley

Now it’s practically a given that your time online is social time. Between commercial and peer pressure, you’re expected to maintain both a public presence for general interaction and a semi-private sphere for friends and family, both updated in real time with your activities, opinions, latest interests, location, and cultural tastes. The vehicles for this presence were homepages at first, then blogs, and now the widget-laden profiles on the social networking sites, along with an endless flow of pinging, poking and tweeting. It’s sort of funny that a system built by notoriously socially awkward geeks has turned into a mammoth, never-ending cocktail party. But that’s where we are, and right now, billions are being bet on monetizing the world of constant acquaintanceship.