We live in an increasingly connected world, driven by the growth of Internet connectivity (be it wired or wireless).
Within social media, one of the more fascinating trends that has emerged recently is how social networks are being connected – something transforming social networks from isolated pillars into loose federations.
The most recent social connection was announced earlier this week when LinkedIn and Twitter unveiled an agreement that will lets users update their LinkedIn status from Twitter, and their Twitter status from LinkedIn – an agreement that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone described as “bringing peanut butter and the chocolate together to make the perfect combination.”
There is also tight integration between Facebook and Twitter, as well as services such as Ping.fm that let you update multiple social networking services using a single message.
A question that needs to be asked is whether the connections between different social networks is a positive development that gives users social synergies, convenience and better and easier ways to connect digitally.
Or is this inter-connectivity digital overkill that will create an endless loop of social updates and conversations based on the idea that everything that everyone is saying gets propagated on multiple networks.
At this point, the enthusiasm about being able to cross-update seems to be ruling the day but it will be interesting to see whether it leads to social networking overlap and overload.
Tags: linkedin, Social Media, social networks, twitter
