o_O that look

ever since i've made it a point to connect w/people offline earlier this year, i've been getting those strange looks o_O from my wife every time i mention "i'm meeting a Twitter-friend." The strange look resembles something like the look that you got back in the early 00s when you told your roommate that you were having "coffee" w/someone you just met online. ;)

since then, i think the social web has matured a bit [just a bit]. there's no shortage of social media gurus out there telling you how you're doing it wrong ;) and by our very own experience, and interactions w/others on the web, we've learned where some of the guardrails and pitfalls are. myself, i've have had a couple mis-steps that i still regret, however, i've learned from them. right, moving on now.

the way i use the social web is different from how, let say, how my wife uses the web. both, though coming from a specific need. for me, it's been a journey on connecting w/other people outside of the orange curtain. For me it's the opportunity to learn and discuss ideas outside my immediate surroundings so that i can find applications to my profession. it came from a need. i'm more willing to put myself out there and meet new people.

for my wife, a facebook fanatic, who's constantly denying friend requests of ppl she doesn't know, she uses the social web as an alternative to connect w/her IRL friends as our lives have become time-crunched for [quality] attention w/our group of friends. again, a need.

with people publicly sharing every moment of their lives on the social web, we've come to have developed somewhat of a digital intimacy and perhaps, trust of the people we meet online. this is not new to most people who've been blogging for a long time, who have developed a relationship-->friendship w/their readers, strictly online, and then having the opportunity to meet IRL. with Twitter, tweet-ups, meet-ups, and twestivals, I think it has accelerated that time [of online relationship development]. can you tell a lot about a person from just 140characters? or is it the string of all the daily FB status updates, flickr posts, tweets, blips and blog comments spread throughout the web that we make ourselves transparent-->real to people? Yes, there are chances that these digital personas can be manufactured, buyer beware i guess. these days, it seems that you can pretty much stay "connected" on the daily happenings of the people in your network thru so many different and shared platforms. i'm really excited to see how google wave and perhaps this Threadsy will simplify all these online platforms we're on.

i do find that it really is beneficially to carry those public, online conversations to the offline. I've been delighted by the opportunities to chat on phone or meet for coffee w/people whom I've met via Twitter and from reading their blogs. all of this didn't happen overnight though. these people demonstrated to me that they were stand-up human beings from their interactions across the social web. and myself, i'm learning from them and trying to do the same for myself. hopefully, the next time i say that "i'm mtg so-'n-so from Twitter", I won't get that look.