Usually not one to spend too much time fretting over Klout scores and blog rankings (at least not any more), I suddenly found myself jumping at the opportunity to sign up to The Sunday Times Social List this afternoon, just to see if it would tell me that I’m influential in the field of marital relations, or something else suitability inaccurate and false.
The Sunday Times Social List is a bit like the Times Rich List but instead of measuring your monetary value it measures your worth based on your social networking activity. After tapping in my Twitter and Facebook details I discovered that I am a Linchpin, which means I have a rare ability to bring people together. That’s nice.
It didn’t tell me a great deal more but did say that one way I could improve my rank, if I so wished, was to ‘upload outrageous pics to attract more comments and points’. That seemed straight-forward enough so I set to work.
Then while digging out photos from my long-forgotten university days when I was young, naïve with very big hair and bushy eye-brows and an inability, it seems, to sensibly judge how much is too much on a night out, it occurred to me that there were benefits to a life without social-networking.
Back in the olden days of 1992, there was no-one there to capture you on a night out and tag you on Facebook before you’ve had a chance to wake up from a hangover. There was, thankfully, no twitter for iphone from which you could tweet your every move whether it was advisable to do so or not. In fact there were no mobiles phones at all.
How very primitive that some of us had to stand outside telephone boxes with a handful of ten pence coins if we wanted to make contact with home. Or with anywhere in fact. But what a huge relief that what happened back then stayed back then and couldn’t be shared with the whole world online.
So I’m happy to remain a Linchpin. Some of us have benefited hugely from a lack of social networking at certain times in our lives. So I’ll pass on the opportunity to attract more comments and posts through outrageous pics and focus my attention on The Rich List instead, which seems a far more sensible idea all things considered.
Drawback with that is that the few pictures of me from university days have been shared on fb by other ppl anyway, including the one of the fancy dress cat costume...
Posted by: liveotherwise | November 06, 2011 at 06:02 PM
Klout says I'm a specialist. My areas of expertise are furniture, vegetarians (although I'm not one) and something else that I once mentioned in passing. Once it was penguins - because posting a picture of penguins taken at the zoo obvioulsy makes you a specialist on them. Re: being a linchpin, it's better than being a lynchmob :)
Posted by: Midlife Singlemum | November 06, 2011 at 07:38 PM
For a while Klout was saying I was an expert on Israel! Yes, I agree - a linchpin has to be better than a linchmop. Now, about my pengiun problem ...
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 06, 2011 at 07:53 PM
In that case your social rating should be sky high! *goes off to check Facebook*
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 06, 2011 at 07:54 PM
I was explaining to a niece recently that when I was at university we didn't have email and still wrote out our essays with a pen. She thought I was joking.
Posted by: angelsandurchinsblog | November 06, 2011 at 09:17 PM
I was telling a friend's son recently that I used to sit in the library for hours on end doing reseach because in those days there was no internet. He was horrified!
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 06, 2011 at 09:29 PM
The Rich List is the way to go.
I remember my university days when email was in its infancy as seemed all glamorous and dangerous! I loved going to the library to do my research and photocopying hundreds of bits of paper that I wouldn't ever look at again. The whole learning by acquisition thing, doesn't happen now does it? I liked the world in the early 1990's, for a start my lap wasn't constantly warm from the heat of the computer... :)
Posted by: zooarchaeologist | November 06, 2011 at 09:39 PM
I may try this, be very interesting what they make of me!!!
Posted by: Stigmum | November 06, 2011 at 09:40 PM
I have to admit I loved spending hours in the university queuing for the photocopier and soaking in the books. It isn't the same now. Technology has certainly changed the pace of life. Perhaps I'm getting old but I quick liked it when it was a little slower. :)
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 06, 2011 at 09:43 PM
I don't think it will tell you very much at this stage. Very few people that I know have signed up for it. Actually, no one at all! You could be the first Stigmum.
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 06, 2011 at 09:45 PM
It is painful to imagine what trouble I could have got myself into at uni with an iPhone and a twitter account! I get goosebumps just thinking about it ;)
Posted by: Actually Mummy... | November 06, 2011 at 10:19 PM
I know exactly what you mean! *taps nose* *says nothing* ;)
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 06, 2011 at 10:22 PM
I am a maestro apparently! Brilliant! I'll leave it there because if the computer could read my blog, well....Thanks for making my evening Ms Scribble!
Posted by: Stigmum | November 06, 2011 at 11:19 PM
As it was you, I had a go to find the the Head's Office is a 'stalwart'. Great huh! I'm happy where I am though. Not sure I could cope with too much razz matazz!
Posted by: jfb57 | November 07, 2011 at 09:35 AM
Oh maestro does sound very impressive! Nice one.
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 07, 2011 at 10:51 AM
I like the idea of stalwart, Juilia. Sounds reliable and reassuring to me. :)
Posted by: Rosie Scribble | November 07, 2011 at 10:51 AM
All the scoring things are crazy, I never know where to start and have always worked in IT. I avoid when I can x
Posted by: Susan Mann | November 07, 2011 at 03:14 PM