nofuncity.com

This, it seems, is the age of social media. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, they're all there, helping us to be social. But are they succeeding?

Well, they're certainly succeeding at something, but many of us are uncertain of what that is, except for the certainties that they're gathering lots of cultural intelligence, of a sort, and making a pile of dough doing it. Participating in this sort of social media sometimes seems like being a volunteer labourer for capitalism. We spend no small amounts of time providing Facebook with remarkable details about our private lives (of the type that, a decade ago, we'd have been screaming murder if a corporate entity tried to collect) so that they can use it to make money. In return they give us... what? Farmville? An accumulation of status updates as a substitute for real communication? Gee, thanks.

In Vancouver, there is another social media option available, particularly for those who are creative, or are interested in the creative, and want to connect with other creative types.

W2 Community Arts, the city-sponsored community arts organisation that is scheduled to take over a 14,000+ square foot space in the new Woodward's complex, has launched its own social media site. The site alows registered users to create a profile, collect friends, publish blogs, list events, and generally communicate and collaborate with other site users. It's not the place to have all your friends and relatives sign up, but if you're interested in building closer ties with other creatives in Vancouver, and finding out about cultural activities (especially those closely related to the downtown eastside community), signing up for a profile may be worth your time.

W2 is not a profit-based organisation, and therefore does not have a primary interest in getting you online just to gather personal information about you so that they can better target you with personally-specific advertising. However, they are using social networking software provided by Ning, a California competitor to Facebook et al, that allows people or organisations to set up their own social networking sites.

Ning provides the basic service for free. Presumably, they make some of their money through enhanced features that clients can choose to pay for. We haven't read the full text of their terms of use, but given that they have reportedly raised over $100 million in venture capital funds, it can reasonably be assumed that information about W2's users is being put to work in some manner. Thus, one would be advised to be as diligent at protecting one's privacy as he or she would on any other social networking site.

Despite the corporate connections, the specific cultural community focus of W2's site is a refreshing change from the bland social homogeneity promoted by sites such as Facebook. And in a city where non-corporatey culture is sometimes difficult to locate, the W2 Community Arts site is a welcome discovery.

You can find the site at , located at www.creativetechnology.org.