Social Network Failure

Jon Chase from Popular Science recently wrote an article on the etiquette of social networking sites. Ultimately, he is still pro-social networking sites, but he raises a lot of good points about the etiquette on these sites. Excerpt from the article...

Once you’ve joined a social-network site and built up a profile, it becomes a free-for-all. Too many of us think it’s perfectly reasonable to spam complete strangers into joining their network of “friends,” with no introduction or explanation offered. That seems petty, but when you regularly get a dozen daily requests, burnout is inevitable and the whole point is lost—if not the site (anyone out there still hanging on Friendster these days?). Business types get flooded with requests to be Linked In or to vouch for someone, and in the end they un-Link in frustration.

I found myself agreeing with him on many points. Although, I have not "un-Linked In", I have to admit that it hasn't lived up to what I had hoped. I recognize that some of that has to do with my inability to devote time to establishing new and maintaining old connections, but the random invite with no explanation is frustrating. I moved to Gmail about two years ago to get away from the spam that I was getting in my Hotmail account. Unfortunately, I've been playing around with different social networking sites (plus receiving all of the "Great Saving" emails from any number of companies) that I have, in essence, spammed myself.