Despite not being one to need lots of friends around me all the time, I always seem to remember being someone who loved to network and meet new people. I’m sure it’s the same for most of us ?
Remember Talkabout, the phone line where you would ring up and talk to strangers and get told off for trying to share your telephone number ? Remember the chat lines where you would talk to sultry women all night long ? Only joking… but I did actually work for one of the first companies to do that back in the day. During my teen years I recall the buzz of ‘getting in’ with different crowds around Aston and Sutton Coldfield, whilst always happy to be on my own in those crowds. The rave scene was brilliant for meeting new people whilst ‘reaching for the lasers’. I met my best mate in a car park at one. Anyway.. I digress.
Back to the matter at hand.
Originally, it had all been about phone calls and texts to keep in touch with all my industry contacts around the world, with the weekly Friday morning hassle of faxing (yes faxing) reaction sheet after reaction sheet to promo companies and the likes. The lack of on-line marketing was what made Miami WMC so special back then, you didn’t get to chat to those people on a daily basis like you do now.
My first awareness of on-line forums was right after I had all my shows cancelled on Galaxy FM. Someone pointed me to a website where there was “uproar” within the community, on the soulful house section of the Godskitchen forum. That was to be the beginning of my love for on-line networking.
From the Godskitchen forum I found Defected’s forum, the Farris forum, Southport Weekender board etc. What others have there been along the way ?
Somewhere in the middle of all that I was contacted by Mark Mendoza who invited me to this wonderful new social media platform called Myspace. I felt like I was part of some secret club.. yeah right with millions of others in the know. I loved Myspace from the moment I saw it. It gave me the chance to be creative by using all of its tools and catch up with old friends while making a whole bunch of new ones. Then it started to get over-populated and I can’t remember why exactly, but it started to do my head in.
Then Facebook popped up but I didn’t like the sound of it. While Michelle had been on there long before me, I couldn’t get my head around why you would want to share all your information with a bunch of strangers, where Myspace was very industry led (well for me at least). Then on New Year’s Day, either ’06 or ’07 (couldn’t have been 05 could it?), whilst sat bored in a hotel room in China, I took the plunge and signed up for a Facebook account. Things have never been the same since.
Thanks to Facebook my immediate and actual fan base increased significantly and The Vocal Booth Weekender was made possible, due to people I had never met before becoming aware of the show, the chat room and the mad bunch of people I associate with. Thank you Facebook ! We have laughed !
Well now it seems that Myspace is preparing to make a(nother) comeback and take FB’s crown where it has previously failed miserably. I would like to pretend I have an exclusive invite to join the beta version, but that would be lying. Google+ had a crack at stealing Facebook’s crown, but didn’t seem to work, as well as a few others. Twitter works well but is a different kind of communication, whilst I am only just finding out the joys of Instagram (although I am really enjoying nosing into people’s lives that way). I think that sums me up.. I love people watching… I’m nosy !
I’m not sure at this stage that I could really be bothered with a new Myspace but you can be sure of a lot of hype when it finally rolls out later this year. Maybe it will mark a new opportunity for my networking skills and the website company ?
Let’s wait and see.
*edit – Thanks to Danny J Lewis I AM now on there thanks to a sneaky invite to test it out. I still don’t think I’ll bother with it.