Are Friends Electric?

Rory Cellan Jones has written this piece on the BBC:

This week I received this intriguing message from a man who moves in London's new media circles.

He wrote: "I met somebody the other day who told me that online networking was so important, and he didn't have the time, he was paying somebody to be him online. To blog, network, post etc . £1,000 a month too.

"Apparently it's a new occupation which he reckons already numbers hundreds of people, paid to be other people!"

I rang the sender of the message - a real-world friend as well as a Facebook contact - and he gave me more details.

"This guy is a busy entrepreneur and he says that wherever he goes, people marvel at the energy he still manages to put into blogging and networking - and he then tells them it is all being done by a guy he pays to do it."

(Rory had it up on Facebook last week, don't know the form about publishing what's in private groups so didn't blog till he published)

£1,000 pm to be someone else....hmmm....lets see about the economics - I wonder how many people one can be in a month .

My first thought was that same as Brent Hoberman's:

"I think if I could get someone else to manage my e-mail then I could outsource social networking," he said.

"But I can't, and think one has slightly lost the plot if that happens."

As Rory also points out:

It's well known that Chinese workers spend long hours earning "gold" on the online game World of Warcraft, so that busy Western gamers can buy a new sword without putting in an excessive amount of time in front of their computers.

Hmmm...maybe outsourcing our virtual Mii's to China will be the next New Thing.

This is a very interesting development however......the whole point of the original social networks like Facebook is that you are supposed to be known to your friends (thats how they are designed) rather than explicitly anonymous (as some others are).....thus there is a real opportunity to game these systems, and - judging by events in previous social media systems - it is sure to occur (if it isn't already)

I'm Spartacus......