::@:: Reality of Dreams ::@::

Do you ever get the feeling your missing something?

No? Oh, well, I do.

Why? Don’t ask me, I’d probably spout some melancholy rubbish as its early in the morning.

Which leads me, by way of internal monologue through winding streets and listening to secrets whispered in the dark by unseen practitioners of sacred arts, to MySpace and Bebo (no I’m not going to link to them)… I am REALLY beginning to dislike them with an intense passion. Why? They are a poor facsimile of a one sheet advert! For crying out loud I’m beginning to miss the infantile dribble that used to swarm the web in Blogger… well… no quite but its getting there.

On some level I can get the appeal… on another it repulses me. I can see the benefits of the social networking, how it can foster greater contacts and even bridge global-social-economic barriers while allowing a place for freedom of expression… BUT on the other hand the utter lack of any real content available to the individuals page and the fact that if you really look at it, the pages are nothing more than a glorified single page covered in an apparently random fashion with poor quality images, hideous designs, irritating animated gifs (my word I thought they died years ago) and flash movies, degrade its potential into a quagmire of, well, lets not say and let your imagination take you.

Now, I admit that this blog (well to be exact it is a website not just a blog… its even had a forum or three in its time) is not the pinnacle of a web presence, nor is it a haven of philosophical debate… it used to have more but I’ve toned down my uber-rantage for fears of bursting an artery. Well, that’s not quite true, I generally now leave most of my “rants” in other peoples comments Yet I find MySpace and Bebo to be a particularly hideous analogy for the insipid degradation of communication on the web, something Chris touched on recently (admittedly a different context but I believe part of the same disease).

Gah! You see there is a problem with writing this sort of post, firstly it only seems to be writeable in the wee small hours, and secondly because of that my brain is usually somewhere else…

Let me be straight up here, a number of my friends use these sites, I am not annoyed at them (I would hope that my friends would know me better than that, but I have been wrong with such assumptions before). I am annoyed that it seems that the best solution for them to perform their online interaction is THESE sites. I wish to goodness I was a good enough coder to create my own alternative but since I suck a coding more than I do in the thing you humans call love, I cannot.

Not everything on the web has to be a tool for discussion or thought provoking content (just look at my links to see that, which by the way have just had a few new additions added) but there is just something about these two (and their kin) that grates me. What is worse is I cannot see a solution or an alternative, it seems that despite my ranting there is no way these behemoths will die (speaking of such Torchwood ROCKED! < - see mind elsewhere)

I had better go before I insult every friend I have on these sites (and perhaps a few others) by continuing.

In closing remember that icebergs are deep metaphors for a lot of things.