reprivatize your social network

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I linked to ARS Electronic in the last posting and feel compelled to point to Arse Electroknia, as so many other blogs have recently.

Besides having an amusing name, Arse is holding a conference in the city in early Oct on the theme of PrOnnovation - the history of how pornography has driven technological innovation for several hundreds of years.

The last major story of porn related innovation (prior to the current VC funding for adult social media sites) was about the problems HDTV was causing for actors in skin flicks as the sharper HD image was revealing physical imperfections that had not been previously visible to the naked eye.

Read more here: In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real

It appears that the porn industry is now getting into the swing of social media and picking up some of the VC money gushing aroudn so freely ($29B this year).

A few stories on recent funding/launch announcements for adult social media sites:

Zivity: Silicon Valley Elite Dabble in Adult Content

New Playboy Social Network Built On Ning

Playboy Launches Social Network: “High schoolers, old dudes and your Mom can’t join

The last line of the “your Mom can’t join” article, cites young people lamenting the loss of certain social networks as the exlusive domain of the young and that they’re looking for something new that provides that seperate space.

I concur.

At a online communities meetup I went to earlier this week, the main subject was Facebook, and I managed to inadvertendly insult at least half the room when I blurted out something to the effect of people 35+ only using FB as a job networking tool or to check up on thier kids.

The diversity of my ‘friends’ on Facebook has led to a panopticon effect as I alter my behavior due to the different venues my contacts extend across. It morphs from a (semi) private venue to further extension of one’s public persona. Of course there are those who just don’t care who knows what, and kudos to them if their skill set is valuable enough that they’ll always be employable no matter what they do in their personal life, however mixing the two worlds and treating it as one is fraught with all sorts of complications.

The creep of blurred networks is something perhaps I’m more concerned about than is necessary, but is due to having just recently researched and written a chapter for my thesis dedicated to the work/life balance issues the BlackBerry raises by blurring the boundaries between networks, which contribute to what I call “the professionalization of the personal.”

It seems to me that there’s significant room for some PrOnnovation in the space of social networking, if only in that it creates a separate space that is clearly off limits to any networks beyond the social.

Although, as the TechCrunch posting asserted, it’s highly unlikely that Playboy is the brand that wins over the kids.

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