I can remember a few years back I had discovered the wonders of IRC chat. I would spend hours laughing and chatting back and forth with friends. Simultaneously, I would fire up three different instant messaging services and some times even voice chat. All this on a 56kb modem that had me paying above $20 a month for service.

Now days the social aspect of the internet has evolved into something quite different. We have video, audio, photographs, chat, blogging and a million other things wrapped up into one website. A person can sign up for an account somewhere and form groups, tribes, councils and whatever else. It really is kind of funny.

Every day someone else is trying to build another one of these sites. Hopeful entrepreneurs search for the ultimate web developer to help them with their plans for a percentage of the millions of dollars they expect to make. YouTube wannabes miraculously appear all over the place. Commercial scripts have popped up giving these people the option of shelling out several hundred dollars for a ready made solution.

I have to confess, personally, it all seems like a rerun to me. I’ve tried a couple different social networking sites. It’s probably just me but none of it seems all that great. Many times a particular site is trying to up sell some sort of paid membership. If not that then something more like one of the social network sites that starts with ‘M’ and ends with ‘Space’. The one that’s more than full of advertisements everywhere you look and every time you check your messages you have ten more fake users soliciting you to join some nasty site. It’s either that or you get solicited by some mortgage lead bot or get rich quick scheme.

On another note, what happens when your 200 friends all prefer different social networking sites. This reminds me of the whole “do you have this instant messenger or that instant messenger” thing. Obviously, you end up joining several and trying to keep track of everybody. I can think of quite a few things on the net that are actually more social than many of these social networks.

For my last rant I’ll point out that many of these sites are fairly weak on features. Many times the blogs are basically a script that lets you post title and text. Comments are about the same. In honesty they tend to have a good number of features…just a bit weak. A geek’s example might be that on one site that starts with ‘M’ you actually have to add your custom stylesheet right in the middle of the page.

Perhaps some day someone will create the ultimate social network in the spirit of open source.