BEDA #2: The 5 Avenues of Online Conversations

As the title of my upcom­ing book is The Great­est Blog­ger in the World I have started to be asked ques­tions like, ‘Do you think you’re the great­est blog­ger in the world?’ and ‘What’s it like hav­ing a blog and talk­ing online?’ Firstly, I am not, will never be, don’t want to be, can’t think of any­thing worse than being known as the great­est blog­ger in the world. So, no. And sec­ondly, at the risk of talk­ing about talk­ing and never say­ing any­thing new or real I’d like to talk about talk­ing. They say that there are five lev­els of conversation:

1. The Weather.

“It’s start­ing to look like rain”.

2. A topic.

“I catch rain in my water tank.”

“Water tanks are cool.”

“Yeah, way cool.”

3. Ener­getic conversations.

“I can’t believe our fathers both sold water tanks back in the 60s!”

“Life was pretty strange with a water tank sales­man for a dad!”

“Tell about it.”

“Hahaha.”

4. Mean­ing­ful

“So I just don’t know any­more if my father loved me then or loves me now.”

“All because of the tanks?”

5. Mean­ing of life-ful

“Yeah, all because of the tanks. Is this how life is sup­posed to be? I feel like I’m doing it all wrong. Or maybe Dad did it all wrong.”

“I think it all depends on how you look at it. Is the water tank of your life half-full or half-empty?”

As more and more online social net­work­ing sites are used (and more and more arti­cles called ‘So What Is This Twit­ter Thing Any­way?’ get pub­lished in week­end news­pa­pers) eti­quettes and ‘appro­pri­ate behav­iours’ for these sites become more evi­dent. For exam­ple, it’s not really cool to post some­thing like ‘Andrew just got dumped and is very sad. I hate you Rebecca!’ on Face­book or Twit­ter. These sites are for flip­pancy, pho­tos and gen­eral news and info. How­ever this is not to say that all types of con­ver­sa­tions can­not hap­pen online (I lose 2 writ­ing points here for my dou­ble neg­a­tive). Which brings me to my Five Avenues of Online Conversations:

1. The weather

The weather and related small talk can hap­pen pretty much any­where online. Although bor­ing con­ver­sa­tions may raise ires if you’re IM–ing.

2. A topic

Per­fect for book­mark­ing — Digg, deli­cious, etc as well as the Twitterbook.

3. Ener­getic conversations.

You could do these on Face­book or Twit­ter but peo­ple are going to get annoyed at see­ing a con­ver­sa­tion going back and forth between you and your friend. You’ll call it ener­getic, they’ll call it inane. Email or Direct Mes­sage it the way to do Level 3. Also, blogging.

4. Mean­ing­ful

Email or Direct Mes­sage, but really IM is the best course for this. And any insight­ful blogging.

5. Mean­ing of life-ful

IM. It’s the only way to ‘talk deep’ online.

My lists and rant­i­ngs are, in them­selves, flip­pant and not to be taken too seri­ously. The only real impor­tant thing to say is that any type of con­ver­sa­tion can take place online. Talk­ing online is not a sixth, dif­fer­ent level of con­vers­ing. Unless you think that shar­ing links to silly things is a supe­rior level of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that can ONLY take place online and is there­fore a sixth (and quite beau­ti­ful) level of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in itself.