2007: Where's My (social network) Yearbook?

I made some really fantastic friends in 2007 -- online. Cre8Buzz, MyCupid, WAYN, FaceBook, MySpace, to name a few, not to mention MeetUp -- all yielded new relationships which I continue to enjoy and am thankful for.

2007 was many things social, and in the bigger picture, I see a few reasons this feels more interesting (this year) than it might have otherwise:

> I changed jobs (from Denver to Boulder) and am thinking a lot about (offline) "social circles"
> My 20-yr high school reunion was an amazing experience, and not a day passes without me noting how it changed my perception of myself (..."Social Networks give us new pieces of ourselves" -- Stowe Boyd)
> I product-managed TWO social networks from scratch
> I joined 50+ social networks doing research and attended the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco (where I networked & LinkedIn with a myriad of new friends)

But the other night, hunkered down checking my messages on one specific social network, Cre8Buzz (full of middle-aged Internet professionals sharing photos of their children and asking each other to read our blogs...) I noticed that one person had changed his profile photo again.

"I liked his old photo," I thought to myself. "I'm sorry I don't have a copy of it, just for remembering."

Then it came crashing down on me: my god, all of this -- the dialog, the uploaded pix, the wacky comments... "will be lost (someday -- maybe by April!), like tears in rain" (to quote Bladerunner).

I stared at the monitor, at My Friends, scrolling up and down.

There was not time to lose: I began right-click-Save-Image'ing each friend's profile pic to, to, to... a New File, "Cre8Buzz.com, 2007."

Whew!

I've looked at that folder a few times since, scrolling through the pictures - each so familiar, at the moment. It's like one's sophomore year in high school: human, transformative, and brief.

How strange to be middle-aged and feel the temporality of relationships and existence. But by this time next year, we may have all migrated to a new generation of URLs. Like graduates.

I wish we could have a year-book, one where "threads" replace clubs, where avatars are the photos. And frankly, where we could sign each other's. BFF, Andy (or something).

(sniff, sniff)

2007 was a good year. Seriously, thanks guys.