The Time, The Place….
New Social Networking sites appear all the time nowadays, but I must admit to being at least faintly concerned about a new site currently in Beta called “Plazes” (spot the play on words).
There isn’t a great deal of information on the site at present, but from looking at it, the whole concept seems to take the idea of Twitter – constant stream of information about your day to day business – then tie it up with software that seems to pinpoint your every move.
If I’m wrong, please tell me – but wow, this sort of creeps me out. Check out the main homepage:
“Create activities to let your friends know what you are doing, when and where” reads the header. Below, you can see some kind of Google Maps integration with a specific location mentioned. “Automatically create activities and update your location”, says a blurb next to a link for “The Plazer” software for your PC.
From what I can gather, the technology has been around since at least 1995 in the form of mobile phone applications and the like. Deciding to tie it into a Social Networking site would seem to be the next logical step, but I am concerned that taking so much detailed personal information (because really, you can’t get anything more personal and detailed than your exact physical location) and wrapping it up into a “Social web-to-go” (as they call it), spells potential disaster when faced with users of social networking sites who will simply go “Oh wow” at the features without bothering to think of potential safety hazards.
Am I worrying over nothing? Or will people be so seduced by the clever technology that they won’t stop to think that pasting their every movement to the web might not be the brightest of ideas?
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