Monthly Archives: March 2013

A few weeks ago a friend of mine posted an image of this website on his facebook wall. If you follow the link (or read the title of this blog) you’ll quickly realize it’s a map of the internet. If you are at all like me, your first reaction might be “You can’t map the internet, silly! It has no geo-phyiscal presence!” But if, like me, you realize this is an overly simplistic interpretation of the concept of ‘map’, you’ll explore this website further and discover that it’s actually quite neat!

The map is a “bi-dimensional presentation of links between websites”. The more traffic a site has the larger the representation of that site is. Users switching between sites form links and the stronger the links, the closer the sites. The sites are also colour coded based on the country in which they are based.

Beyond being visually attractive and generally cool to look at, the Internet Map is also a useful tool for examining how people use the internet.

For instance, a closer examination of the second largest blob on the map reveals facebook as the second most trafficked site. (I guess I should note this map was created in2011 and, as far as I can tell is still based on those statistics). Ominously close, however, is the giant blob representing Google.

This blog by Mark Wilson, sheds some light on what this close spatial proximity means. Basically, the close proximity of these two blob monsters indicates that a large portion users are visiting both sites. This means that google and facebook are, in a sense, competing for the same customers. This is not really surprising news. I think most people would expect the two biggest websites to have many users in common.

What is surprising is the distance between facebook and other social media sites. While Youtube and Twitter are relatively close to the facebook blob, wikipedia is further away and popular blogging sites blogspot and wordpress are very distant (wordpress is in the virtual Oort cloud of this internet solar system). This seems suggest that users of these blogging sites tend not to use facebook, twitter and the like nearly as much as other internet users. Those who use wordpress appear to not use the rest of the internet at all.

I’m not sure I completely grasp everything offered by this map. Further exploration may reveal new insights. What is clear is that the internet is dominated by relatively few sitesand a good portion of these are social networking related. I would like to find a similar map from 5 and 10 years ago to see what the landscape looked like before facebook and the other giants really established themselves.

Searching for inspiration for a new blog post I decided to explore the lighter side of social media. Sure social media sites can connect us with our friends, help people collaborate in the workplace, streamline group projects etc…. but where’s the fun in that! I remember when I first signed up for facebook; it was exciting to log it and see what people I barely knew were up to. It served no practical purpose but it was fun! And I like fun!

I feel social media has lost its excitement factor. Maybe it’s because social media is a staple of my academic life but it all just seems far too…. useful. I want random, pointless entertainment!

To quench my thirst for senseless entertainment in the social media realm, I embarked on a quest to find the wackiest social media site I could find. It turns out there is a near endless supply of crazy social media sites (I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… it is the internet) and I thought I would share a couple of my favorites with all you fine people.

REMcloud

Definitely one of my favorites. REMcloud connects people through shared dream experiences. People can post brief descriptions of their dreams and see who has been dreaming about similar things. The site also shows trending dreams and celebrities in dreams. I was disappointed to find out the number one trending dream was about iPhones… When I dream it’s usually about fighting dinosaurs or fixing Winston Churchill’s car… but I guess that’s me…

Line for Heaven

Ever wanted to get into heaven by using a social media site? Well now you can! Line for Heaven allows you to “save your soul and reserve and place in Heaven.” Users earn karma points by interacting with the site and other users and those who earn the most points are “moved closer to God.” It’s unclear how official this site actually is, but it aims to promote religious tolerance and good deeds, which is a noble cause.

There are countless other bizarre social media sites out there, including a dating site for those passionate about mustaches and a site that allows people to donate money for breast implants. It seems as though there is a social networking site for every niche, trend and idea. It just shows how expansive social media has become; it verges on (or emphatically exceeds depending on your point of view) superfluity.

While many of these sites seem pointless, unnecessary or downright offensive, they still serve a purpose. People find enjoyment interacting on these sites. I feel this is the entire point of social networking and can sometimes get lost in all the practicality and usefulness social media tools offer us.