{"id":734,"date":"2005-07-22T08:39:51","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T15:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/07\/connection_as_competition\/"},"modified":"2005-07-22T08:39:51","modified_gmt":"2005-07-22T15:39:51","slug":"connection_as_competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/connection_as_competition.php","title":{"rendered":"Connection as competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An associate forwarded a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aimfight.com\/\">this AOL feature<\/a> that lets you measure your social network against anyone else on the system&#8230;and determine the &#8221;winner.&#8221; Says <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aimfight.com\/whatisaimfight.html\">the FAQ<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\nUsing a complicated algorithm, AIM Fight crawls through the depths of the Internet to answer the all-important question that plagues us all: How popular am I <b>right this second<\/b>?&#8230;. Your score is the sum of the current number of people online who have you listed as a buddy, out to three degrees. This means the score is constantly changing, and the winner of the battle will constantly change with it.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Admittedly, the AOL feature is more for smirks than for smack-downs, but it exposes a bit of the desperation or narcissism that&#8217;s enabled by a global bucket of isolated individuals. (Okay, I&#8217;ll admit that I check <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/search\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\">my Technorati profile<\/a> frequently to see who&#8217;s talking about <i>me<\/i>.) Where status was once determined by who your ancestors were or how many expensive possessions you accrued, a new measure has become how connected you are at any given moment of your day.<\/p>\n<p>Asks my associate:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>&#8221;How are cultural organizations supposed to provide meaning and\/or entertainment to people who:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Care about these kinds of questions, and\n<li>Expect to get instantaneous and constantly-changing feedback in response&#8230;\n<li>For free?&#8221;\n<\/ol>\n<p><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To which I answered, &#8221;I have no idea.&#8221; Can someone out there help us out? If so, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/005497.php#comments\">post a comment<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An associate forwarded a link to this AOL feature that lets you measure your social network against anyone else on the system&#8230;and determine the &#8221;winner.&#8221; Says the FAQ: Using a complicated algorithm, AIM Fight crawls through the depths of the Internet to answer the all-important question that plagues us all: How popular am I right [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}