Social networking sites are SO early 21st century

I was struck the other day reading septuagenarian historian Jesse Lemisch's HNN essay on joining Facebook. Lemisch, who considers himself one of the oldest members on the social networking site, suggests that although few academic historians haunt such sites today, more and more will do so in the years to come as younger scholars who grew up with these sites enter the profession.

I must admit that as a middle-aged scholar, I am not a member of Facebook, MySpace or any social networking site — though, of course, particular details about my likes and dislikes will show up in far-flung corners of the Internet, from online book sellers to other people's blogrolls. But I suspect that social networking sites will eventually go the way of carbon paper and photographic film, and sooner rather than later.

Perhaps someone has already developed this concept, but I expect in the not-too-distant future to see open-platform social networking. That is to say, the "tools" of social networking — designating "friends," downloading multimedia files for review by others, creating personalized blogs/diaries — will come with your Internet service, can be accessed by any Internet user with a one-time, minimal registration that you control, and will be portable from one Internet service provider to another.

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