I’m thinking about adding social networking links to our sites.
Reasons against: There hasn’t been any great outcry for it. There are some comics that flourish in social networks. For instance, if I did a comic about Babylon 5 you’d send it to your friend Joe, because he’s all about Babylon 5. Or street hockey or any other thing that you and your friends share. Y’know, social networking. You Say it First is, generally speaking, not that kind of comic. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are a bunch of you who resell fragrance compounds and Lemon Technology is just like your workplace, and your coworkers would really get a kick out of it.
Secondly, our comics are severely continuity-based. Some of them stand on their own pretty well, but most of them – some of my favorites – require context. It’d be like photocopying page 83 of your favorite book, handing that to your friends and hoping that they enjoy it. We’re not poised to go viral in a way that some other comics are. That’s just not how we work here.
Thirdly, I’ve seen how easy it is to post a link to Facebook. Do you really need a button for that? Are there people who say to themselves “My friends would really get a kick out of this. But copying and pasting is it too much trouble so I’m not going to bother”? I mean, if they’re there I’ll add it – I’m not above pandering to the lazy demographic.
Reasons for: I’m reminded of the album by blues legend Howlin’ Wolf: “This is Howlin’ Wolf’s new album. He doesn’t like it. He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either.” I mention that because it is the awesomest album title ever. Also, it’s relevant to the discussion, but I was going to mention it next chance I got anyhow. But my point is that just because I might not get something at first, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless. I don’t want to be the last guy making silent films because I think talkies are just a fad. On the other hand, things aren’t inherently useful just because I don’t get them (cf. Laserdiscs, Windows Vista, hypercolor shirts).
Which brings me into reason against #2: The easy way of doing this – the prepackaged solutions let folks share to about two hundred social networking sites. I was unaware that there were that many. I have never heard of 90% of the sites they list. I’m putting my name with these things I’ve never heard of and don’t know anything about. And if I’m trying to hype myself on a site I’ve never heard of, I look like a poseur and a shill. It’d make me feel like an unhip corporation trying to rebrand itself into a youth culture that it doesn’t try to understand.
But that’s a reason for: As the social networking environment changes – and I’m sure it will – I can either let the try to keep up with it by myself, fall behind, or go with a prepackaged widget that does the work for me.
I’ve spent more time thinking about how to do this than I it would take to implement any of the above solutions, so I’m going to leave it here. Since this is something that you guys would theoretically use if it were to theoretically exist, what do you think?
Tags: babylon 5, social networking, street hockey