I’ll be the first to admit it, I just find Twitter irritating. There’s just something in me that doesn’t make me interested in hearing the mundane information about people’s lives. Especially when it’s fired at you at the rate of “Tweets”. Sure, it’s a fine concept, and it’s obviously caught on with some degree of success, but I’m simply not interested in that sort of thing.

I must confess, I did make a Twitter account, just to try the thing out. It lasted for all of 10 minutes. I just don’t know if any good things can come from a community which is centered around “ping” type updates, of little value.

And speaking of the “new wave” community sites, Virb is not my cup of tea either. I’m already a part of Myspace (just for my “real life” friends. I do have some :)), many forums, Digg, YouTube and actively comment on as many blogs as I can, and I think that’s just about enough. These days there are just so many social networks and groups to be a part of, and Virb (to me) is just one too many.

When I begin to think more deeply about it, I struggle to find any advantageous purpose for these social-networky sites. Sure, it’s great to have connections, but between LinkedIn, Myspace, Virb and Twitter (just to name a few of the more popular ones), we are really overly spoiled for choice. One minute you just *have* to be a part of Myspace, then weeks later, your friends are asking you to join Virb, what’s next? Each new network seems to be “Newer, Cooler and Better!”. There really should be one, single, definitive network that connects everyone in a balanced and generic way. Not thousands of sub-par networks which are populated and deserted on a whim. Fads come and go way too quickly, so the internet may not be the place for making meaningful and lifetime connections.

Call me old fashioned, but I’ll stick to my real life social networks. Even if I don’t have 5,212 friends.