But it's SHALLOW and POINTLESS!

This is a response to several blog posts that talk about the inanity of this 2.0 application or the pointlessness of that 2.0 application.

A lot of the "social networking" applications might seem shallow and pointless as stated. One of the interesting things about Learning 2.0 - to me - is that there are a lot of ways to think about the various applications, and it's interesting to me to figure out what would be a good way to think about some of the shallow and pointless ones.

Both your creative side and your analytical side can play a part in figuring out how to make a 2.0 application work for you. Of course, there's no obligation to do anything more than try them out.

Everyone has one (at least!) that they can't get past ... *cough*MYSPACE*cough* ... but I see both Twitter and Facebook as windows into people's lives that ordinarily I wouldn't have. For instance, I'm friends with Jessie Voors on Facebook. I know her slightly, from Teen Summer Reading, and from being connected through the library family ... but when she went off to college, I could have lost track of her altogether, except perhaps for twice yearly updates from Mary. But with our connection through Facebook, I not only get absolutely delightful (and sometimes outrageous) updates about what she's doing and thinking about, I also exchange emails with her once or twice a month, with an observation about something similar that happened to me in my college theatre career, or just to congratulate her on getting a part in a play.

The fact that I knew a cool kid like Jessie while she was growing up has great value to me. The idea that I can continue to know a cool person like Jessie because she allows me this little window into her life has immense value to me.