This might strike some people as odd. I like to talk in person, and
face to face, I do a fair job hiding that I’m introverted (usualy by
being the loudest guy in the room). However, when I’m on the phone,
even with people I like, and want or need to talk to, I’m always
trying to come up with a reason to get off the phone.

I think there are a couple things going on here. First, when you can’t
see a person, you lose a lot of visual cues to help move the
conversation along. This cab be crippling to one who counts on those
cues to gauge how the discussion us going. Second, most of the time,
the phone is people wanting something from you. For me, this poisons
the tool for pleasant experiences.

If you’re a company, and I have to call you, you probably won’t be my
first choice to do business with.

If you’re a friend, and will only interact over the phone, expect me
not to call, expect the calls to be short, and expect me to be
distracted.

This isn’t a new thing for me, and most of my friends know it (because
any relationships that very dependant on the phone have withered).

I’m hoping I’m not alone with my hatred of talking on the phone. If I
am or I’m not, let me know.

But there’s one thing that was lost.

The local community. Since a BBS was typically run by a person who’s close enough to be a local telephone call, the users naturally all lived in the same area. This enabled a lot of cool things. Just about everyone lived near everyone, there were meetups in the real world, discussions about local events came naturally.

Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Craigslist have begun to pick up on some of these uses, but not ideally, because the categories are by town/school. Brightkite does things a bit better, but has it’s own problems, such as a tiny user base.

I live in New Milford, CT, just south of the middle of nowhere. According to Facebook, my ‘network’ is either New Haven, Bridgeport, or Poughkeepsie. Craig says I should be in northwest CT, new haven or fairfield county (one town over)

The thing is, my ‘network’ should really be something like, 50 miles from where I am.

I can’t blame facebook, the model was build around campuses.

Local news outlets don’t understand how to build communities, and maybe it’s wrong to expect them to.

With the onset of location aware cellphones, and software, these models need to change. We need the tools to find people near us, not just for dating, not just for events or resturaunt reviews, but for anything. One network, or a thousand federated networks.

More to follow