Online social networks | Everywhere and nowhere is a recent article from The Economist. It prompted me to think on the elephant in the room for social network sites: their business model involves trapping people within their walls, whilst social interaction has a nasty habit of occurring wherever and whenever it can. This is a source of tension for social networking sites; they are trying to keep their users contained, whilst the users wish to break out.

When we meet someone there is a complex dance whilst we “get to know them”. One of the core activities during this period is generating trust between oneself and the other person. Self-disclosure plays a large part in creating this trust. Self-disclosure is the act of telling people about yourself; disclosing information to the other person. Initially these disclosures are small: musical tastes, favourite films and so on. As we gain more trust in the other person, these disclosures become more personal; say, a problem at work.

I woke up this morning to find a number of ladybirds had decided to colonise my window pane and surround:

I left the window open and it looks like they’ve all managed to escape now!

Almost a month ago now, I moved flats. I’m now living with a friend, Des, rather than on my own. I’m adapting well to this change of living arrangements, though initially it was strange sharing a flat with someone again!

The new flat is around five minutes walk from my old flat, so no major movements.

The building is a nice big old Victorian building. It lives up to its name of “Mansions” much more so than a house I lived in a few years ago. If you follow the link to flickr, I’ve added a note for the window belonging to our flat.

I was reminded today how powerful and world-changing the internet is. I was able to do something that wouldn’t have been possible until very recently: I’ve just found, listened to and watched a singer I’d never heard of an hour ago. This is, when you stop to think about it, simply amazing.

I found out about the group The Gadsdans a few months ago when I heard a song of theirs on 6music Introducing. I went back to their myspace page today to have a listen. Having some time on my hands, I decided to listen to some of the Gadsden’s Friends. The first link I clicked was She Makes War (Hey, I’m a sucker for girls who make music). What a wonderful piece of serendipity this was.