So the Internet back then was 90% black and white or possibly 8-bit colour depending on your monitor at the time. And the biggest joy of owning a bulletin board was the interaction from other members. People you did not even know would add files, download files and get in touch. And the really cool part – they were not locals – but came from all over the place in Australia and even across the world. The first thing anyone did when they made a connection and logged in, was to check messages. It didn’t matter that most of what transferred was crap and hardly worth reading, because the real fun was in the fact that you could actually communicate via your computer.

And now we have the Internet as it is today, email is just part and parcel of our everyday life, and we perceive it as nothing too special. I now sit here on a 20mb broadband pipe connection and there is no connection sound anymore, indeed, I would not hear it even if there was – my connection is permanent and gets turned off less than most other appliances in my home. Media and files are attainable from all kinds of Internet resources and in most instances, unlike the days of Bulletin Boards, you have no need to sign up for membership. You just grab what you want, from wherever you want and whenever you want.

We all have permanent chat programs that come with our emails too and we can add friends, acquaintances and whoever else we like, from anywhere in the world at the click of a button. In actual fact, I tend to turn off more than I add as people from all walks of life try to add themeselves to my chat panel friends’ list. We can be much more selective now that it is so easy too. Emails should actually be a tool which provides instant response but I find that whilst some people are very good at giving replies, there are still many who are just lazy, rude, or a combination of both, and they simply do not reply. Of course, this is very different if they want something, but this runs parallel to most telephone conversations anyway – so it’s not too surprising.

And recently [meaning in the last 2 years] social networking has become one of the new buzz words flying across the Internet, with people in their millions have signing up for such services as Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. There are hundreds more on offer, and we all know at least one or two of them and depending on who you are, you either hate them or love them.

Many of my work colleagues have been using Facebook for ages, and although I signed up too, I just do not see the fascination in it to be honest. Maybe that is because I am very camera shy and the whole point of Facebook seems to be sharing yourself via photos – so no match fo me on that score. MySpace doesn’t interest me at all either. I have my own domains and web space so no need to go third party and use something that looks like it is full of problems [and kids].

Two programs have caught my eye though and I have just started using them more and more. I signed up for a Flickr account only weeks ago and although I hate the main page – it’s drab, boring and deviod of any design – I do like the fact you can store all your photos online. Well, when I say all, I mean 200 with the free account but we have gone the whole hog and paid the fee to be Flickr pros now so we have unlimited photo storage. This could be something they regret in my opinion. We have thousands and thousands of photos and even when we try hard to be sensible and only upload those ones we want to keep, well, that upload button is so easy to use and they all end up there somehow – just wanting to be viewed.

The other program is Twitter, which is a silly name but the program itself looks quite good. A part of me still thinks all of this social networking stuff is an absolute waste of time, but who knows, maybe I will be fully converted one day. As it is for now, I have signed up and even gone as far as adding many of the contacts from my email accounts as ‘following’ which basically means they are included in my Twitter list and each time they make a post it automatically comes into view on my Twitter. Trouble is, my contacts list is gi-normous because of my involvement with helping so many people set up their sites, and this means that there are more acquaintances in the list than there are real friends. This is my experiment though, to see if this social networking tool actually helps you to gain friends? By my own admission, I am a hard nut to crack in all things socially oriented, so it will be interesting to see what happens. However, just to show publically that I am really serious about this, I have even gone so far as to add a Twitter Flash panel to the bottom of this site on the main page. This displays everything that is happening in my Twitter and hides nothing. Check it out and let me know what you think – stupid or great? I am not sure what I think just yet!

Yet another tool that I have used previously but now using more frequently is the Last-FM music social network. I find this to be one of the best around and I think it is very cool that the music I play via my own system here in my home using Foobar, is then displayed on my Last-FM account, and with the help of a plugin, then listed on the website here [again on the front main page and single post sidebars]. Comparing this new technology to the bulletin board scenario [mentioned earlier] is like the comparing the Pope to reality. There just is no comparison. Wowsers, this stuff really is super cool!

On an ending note, I have to say that I am still very reluctant to share too much of my personal detail in any of these programs, but I may change my mind as I use them more and more. The fact that I use my actual name on this site as opposed to nicknames from the past, shows that I am climbing out of my shell and baa-baa-ing as good as the rest, but I see all of this as a day-by-day attitude and know in the back of my mind that a few clicks here and there can quickly shut down accounts, close the doors and bring it all back very quickly to my normally reclusive and hermit style, preference.

If you have read this far and would like to share your experiences or suggestions for better means of social networking, then please use the comments section below, or get in touch via Twitter, Flickr or Last-FM.