Rally, I Can Quit You: My Failed Social Networking Experiment
July 27th, 2010 |
I didn’t intend for it to be an experiment, but I just realized that my brief fling with Rally (alternately called Rally Up), was one of unrequited love. I had some hopes for Rally that weren’t realized, due mostly to unreasonable expectations on my part.
A Foursquare veteran, I decided a while back to download Rally, because I read about its developers in a Santa Cruz paper. I liked its premise, “a social network for real friends.” It seemed so Santa Cruz in its philosophy, encouraging people to only add real friends that they knew in the old, pre-social networking era, and respecting privacy in a way other social networks did not.
I actually live in the mountains about 13 miles from Santa Cruz, which is our closest “big city.” I have about 15 “friends” (yes, the quotes are necessary) on Rally. What I found is that I checked in regularly, especially when I was in downtown Santa Cruz, but that my check-ins where of the tree-in-the-forest variety. With a couple of exceptions, I encountered very little interaction, even though I often encouraged it in others.
Most of the people I have as friends on Rally are people I have met in person, or who have similar professional interests and of course geographic proximity. But only a couple were real friends prior to my adopting Rally.
This small scale experiment hardly qualifies as a scientific study, but I do think I can draw some conclusions from it:
- I might actually have nothing in common with and/or nothing of interest for the people on my friends list
- Strangers and acquaintances can become friends online, but they are more likely to do so offline
- The evolution of real friendships from online friendships isn’t guaranteed, even on a very small scale and with people who have common interests
Tags: rally-up, location-based-services, friends, social-networking
| Sphere This |
I think this is partly a question of scale. I had a similar experience with Rally, and I kept finding myself wishing that my “real” offline friends would use Rally. But for many people outside the geek-o-sphere, pulling out your mobile device to check in wherever you go is not really part of standard operating procedure. It’s a hassle without any easily identified tangible benefit.
Comment by Erik — July 29, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
I’ve often wondered if much of the mania for social networking, blogging, tweeting etc. owes to an illusion that one is actually broadcasting something to a waiting audience and that one’s thoughts–no matter how mundane or poorly expressed–are transmuted into significance by posting them on the Internet. I also don’t think we’ve absorbed that fact that almost every keystroke will be preserved for later inspection by anyone. Without trying, I can say that I have left a trail a mile wide on the Internet. Happily, I think what I’ve left there reveals me to be an aspiring Robert Benchley rather than a poor imitator of Howard Stern.
Comment by Martin Chorich — July 29, 2010 @ 3:47 pm
[...] Rally, I Can Quit You: My Failed Social Networking Experiment [...]
Pingback by This Week in Location: 31 Location-based must read articles you may have missed | Wayne Sutton - location-based services, gadgets, marketing, social media, iPhone & iPad — July 31, 2010 @ 9:01 am