“The internet ate my novel, but this is much more fun #careerchange #nolookingback oh but #worldsosilentnow Hey!” Anne Enright, Twitter fiction

In the beginning there were bulletin boards – the grandparents of contemporary public posting, followed by internet forums – somewhat similar to the state planning of  the former USSR  – ’twas was hard to get in, and even harder to leave them.

Then, there was MySpace – looking back at it, its sparkling layouts could only be compared to the shiny parachute pants, shoulder pads and big hair popular in the 80ies – no one remembers gladly they actually wore those.

Thereafter, the new kid on the block arrived – and we welcomed the aeon of Facebook…

Back in the days of  Myspace – Tom was everyone’s friend and many of us had developed a certain emotional attachment to his dorky picture, yet somewhere in 2008 it seemed that he went missing… He reappeared on G+ several years later and I swear I felt as if I was reunited with a long lost family member! (I  bet you that many of  Tom’s  237,991,950 MySpace  friends felt exactly the same!)

Speaking of which, let us take a better look at cyber biodiversity.

First, we need to choose a method for categorization and here we are opening a  whole new can of worms: Evolutionists are often asked what they mean by “species,” and creationists are often asked what they mean by “kind.” Creationists would like to define “kind” in terms of interbreeding, since the Bible describes different living things as “multiplying after kind,” and evolutionists also use the interbreeding criterion. However, scientists recognize certain bower birds as distinct species even though they interbreed, and they can’t use the interbreeding criterion at all with asexual forms.*

I am as confused as you are.  Other sources clarify that: “Creationists oppose the idea that species can evolve indefinitely and charge evolutionary biologists with failing to define their terms properly.”

Right… It seems I am with evolutionary biologists on this one – most of my MySpace friends shapeshifted into Facebook friends and it was very few, Tom among them, who didn’t make it …

Anyway, as the story goes –  any real (macro)evolution requires “an expansion of the gene pool, the addition of new genes and new traits as life is supposed to move from simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms.” So far  – so good; according to an ancient data Facebook ‘s expanded gene pool “now has nearly 100 million more worldwide users than MySpace, which added 4 million new users in December to 125 million total. The page view difference is more dramatic – Facebook had 80 billion monthly page views in December v. 43 billion for MySpace. Just six months ago the sites were about the same size.”

‘Twas January 2009, mind you – and that’s probably the last time anyone bothered comparing the two; from there on Myspace, it seems,  went down the online memory lane, extinct like some totally enormous dinosaurs.

As per transition from “simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms”, if you too are regularly bashing your head against the wall every single time Zuckerberg’s team introduces a new, complicated and unnecessary innovation, then you’d know that the above mentioned criteria is fulfilled as well.

Lo and behold, influenced by the philosophy of Zen, minimalists – whom for the purpose of this classification we can compare to evolution’s  bowerbirds – started an upraise  and in their everlasting search  for simplicity had moved to Twitter. But, some of this distinct kind had interbred by keeping both accounts and interacting – tweeting and facebooking –  inbetween the two networks.

With time, some started feeling rather nostalgic and occasionally started checking out their old forum accounts, albeit hardly anyone paid visits to the neglected message boards…

Anyhow, natural selection started favoring good typing skills and fittest Alpha males&females were pushed to the corner by those who could type faster.

It’s probably at that very time that the oldest question in the cyber world was raised – and the question which no one has answered yet was: To Tweet Or To Facebook?

 

As you would know, the impending 2012 elections are actually insignificant juxtaposed to Twitter vs Facebook dilemma and there are whole sorts of criteria one should be using while determining between the two- the former consisting of, but not necessarily limited to, the following:

a) are your grand-grand parents on that social network?

b) how many A list celebrities use it?

c) is there enough daily drama – so that you don’t have to watch soap operas (and thus can save on cable TV)?

Stuff like that.

That being said, given that everything changes but the change itself, as twitterrific as 140 character minimalism was, many felt too much is left unsaid – and here we are on WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging platform…

What’s next? That – Cyber Gods only know, but when it comes to me – I reckon I’ll stick around here for a while.

*adopted from: www.answersingenesis.org

France in the Year 2000 (50 illustrations)  are cataloged at Wikimedia Commons, the illustration above is my favorite.

L.R.S.