Social network invites can be a plague
If you're like many people deeply wired into a Web 2.0 lifestyle, your inbox is a never-ending flow of invites to new social-networking services.
Day in and day out, it seems, there's a new one. Today it's Notch Up, yesterday it's Naymz. Last week it was Dopplr.
And that's not even counting the steady flow of requests to be someone's friend on LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo or Facebook.
For me, it's a constant annoyance. I know I probably should jump on the LinkedIn bandwagon, for example, yet I never have, and frankly, don't expect I ever will. I suppose it's possible that one day, long ago, I created an account. All I know is that every few days, someone I know--often a distant acquaintance--will ask me to be their friend on LinkedIn.
And of course, what follows some set number of days later is a stern automated message warning me that my offer to be that person's friend is going to expire. Darn!
For some people, though, the issue with the constant stream of invites is becoming more than just annoying.
"I'm suffering from sheer invite toxicity," wrote Heather Kelley, the Kraus visiting professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University, to an e-mail list I'm on. "Regardless of source, exclusivity or debatable utility of the service, my immediate response to seeing one in my inbox is 'NOT ANOTHER ONE,' combined with annoyance at the friend who sent it--'...
read more..
