A Brief (Comprehensive) view of (Faux) Friendship

via PSFK comes this astounding telling of the history of friendship by William Deresiewicz of The Chronicle of Higher Education, through the lens of contemporary social networks. There’s a lot to digest (and like) here, but this nugget rang true for me:
And so we return to Facebook. With the social-networking sites of the new century—Friendster [...]

Published on December 15, 2009 10:49 am.
Filed under: Links, People and Other People Tags: , , ,

Contemplating the Soft Infrastructure of Social Media

There are some really intriguing underpinnings of an infrastructure meme at the moment, which I’ll attempt to coalesce around some ongoing social media trends. Please bear with me:
Deepak Kumar, a consultant with the ICFAI Journal of Infrastructure, outlines the distinctions between ‘hard infrastructure’ and ’soft infrastructure’ in these terms1:
(The) infrastructure sector is divided into hard [...]

Published on March 17, 2009 5:14 pm.
Filed under: People and Brands, Things I Have Written Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cracking the DNA of Social Networking

According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, our individual behavior in building our social networks is more hard-wired than many of us are wont to believe.
In comparing the social networks of identical twins — who share 100 per cent of their genes — with those of fraternal [...]

Published on January 27, 2009 9:54 am.
Filed under: Links, People and Other People Tags: , , ,

links for 2009-01-14

Logic+Emotion: Alliances
Another fantastic post from David Armano – this focused on the strategic alliances forged both IRL and within social networks. Well-thought-through, if not particularly revelatory.

Demakersvan’s Lace Chain Link Fence | PSFK
Just keep on getting pulled in by the PSFK tractor beam. This is a gorgeous, intricate reconsideration of an everyday object.

ChaosScenario: The Day the [...]

Published on January 14, 2009 4:02 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: , , , , ,

links for 2009-01-12

ChaosScenario: Have the courage to be wrong
Cam Beck chimes in with my favorite post of the day – this an argument for the boldness, if not the correctness, of Christopher Columbus from a historical context. Fascinating stuff.

Brand Autopsy: Myths of Innovation
A great slide presentation from John Moore, filled with salient points on innovation from Scott [...]

Published on January 12, 2009 4:02 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: , , ,