Evolutions of Personal Networks

My name is Vito Glazers.  Years ago I resisted the stampede into social media.  Although I was one the first people I knew who had a cell phone, and spent many hours after school on AIM in grade school and junior high connecting with friends, I barely used MySpace and I was one of the last people I know to succumb to joining Facebook. The idea of making myself very public was never appealing to me. Growing up living with my father, having less resources than most, gave me a simpler perspective on the world than people my age who had embraced technology deeply through video games and laptops.  We did not have a home phone, so I was used to being isolated from communication.  Getting a cell phone opened the world to me.

my first cell phone in 1996

My first cell phone, in 1996

Having the cell phone allowed me to build a personal network at a young age.  The personal network I built as a youth began my evolution into a successful adult.  In retrospect, I see that personal networks are the key to success, as no business can succeed without distribution.  If a product or service is truly revolutionary, there is no better group of people to initially distribute to and share than with those who you are personally connected with. I now understand how important social networks are.  In hindsight, all social networking websites did was digitize the current generations personal networks, making them more accessible and speeding up connectivity between society. Now that more than just our own personal networks have been digitized, and our entire civilization basically has a digital counterpart, social networks are more relevant than ever before.  The exponential increase in people using the internet on desktops, and not just mobile devices, but smart phones, has lead to a widening array of niche social networks.  These new niche social networks all individually appeal and allow users to connect in different ways.  Some of them, like Vine and Instagram, are formatted to preferably only be used on a mobile device and not even from a home computer. In the past 2-3 years I have been catching up on building my online network. Recently I decided to build presences on all the biggest social media sites and give them a fair shot and see if there are any unique features I am missing out on.  I like the idea of social networking, but Facebook is a little bit too personal and overwhelming for me which is a little off-putting.  I love the capabilities of their advertising platform to produce results for individuals and enterprises, but as far as a social networking experience, I think that I would prefer a smaller network that encourages more unique connectivity. Please enjoy this blog which will serve as a place for me to track evolutions in social media; for my personal network, for my business, and for myself.

vito glazers black and white

Visit my homepage at http://VitoGlazers.com

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