Anti-Social Networking?

Written by Kelvin Lee. Kelvin works in the Corporate Marketing department of one of the world's leading global news & infomation company and is based in Canarf Wharf, London.

Do you still have friends who are not registered on Facebook or Friendster? Unless they are not connected to the Internet, it's quite amazing in this time of age, isn't it?

During one of the keynote speeches I attended at Internet World 2008 in London, one of the speakers spoke briefly about a relatively new anti-social networking site called NOSO.

Perhaps you can now recommend NOSO to those friends who prefer to remain anonymous in the online space. The idea is that NoSo gives people an opportunity to now 'revolt' against the social networking revolution. Hence, the name of the site - NOSO(cial).

Instead of traditional social networking sites allowing you to set up an online personality (which you would usually try to spice up as much as you can with photos, videos, descriptions .. and then start adding friends, groups, events etc), NoSo gives you none!

Well, almost. You are only allowed to have a few fields to fill in during registration and profile editing - of which the fields are ones such as 'Where you do NOT live?' and 'What you are NOT interested in?'

And if you're still wondering - no, you cannot upload photos of last night's wild party at Ministry of Sound or your latest travel trip to Bangkok. In fact, one can only choose one of the supplied silhouette images (much akin to Apple's iPod campaign) to be used for you NoSo profile picture

NoSo is the complete opposite of how popular sites such as Facebook & YouTube have defined social networking in the past couple of years.

So what's the point of NOSO, you ask.

According to the company profile, 'NOSO is a real-world platform for temporary disengagement from social networking environments. The NOSO experience offers a unique opportunity to create NO Connections by scheduling NO Events with other NO Friends.'

'NO' events are then organised at random designated places where NOSOers (people who use NOSO) can turn up at the venue and ... NOT say anything. There are no ice-breaking games or activities whatsoever participants who turn up just know that another NOSOer is also at the venue.

After 'remaining quiet' for 1 hour or so, the participants then disperse and carry on their normal lives. They can however choose to take photos and upload them into the Flickr-NOSO page.

There was an event held in a restaurant in San Francisco in the early part of May 2008 but I can't seem to find any stats on how many actually turned up though.

What do you think of NOSO?
NOSO - http://www.nosoproject.com/
NOSO on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=noso
Internet World (UK) – http://www.internetworld.co.uk/


Written by Kelvin Lee

Currently based in Canarf Wharf, London, Kelvin Lee works in the Corporate Marketing for one

of the world's leading global news & infomation company. Born, bred & educated in Singapore (along with an international exchange stint in The Netherlands), Kelvin's previous marketing experience consists of a mix of b2b and b2c traditional and new media programs & campaigns for leading companies in the telecommunications, eLearning, lifestyle and entertainment industries. Away from the corporate space, Kelvin traverses the music globe as DJ Keishi & immerses himself in the latest dance music from the world's best DJs & producers.