Social networking is built one person at a time.
That's the beauty of it, as each person has equal weight (one blog, one MySpace page, one Facebook etc.) If that person decides to link to others then the network is strengthened. Look at what NJ artist Joanie San Chirico is doing with her social network called professional Fine Art network.
She links to each member, they link via Facebook and or LinkedIN, the more members- the stronger the network grows and the more people benefit.
Social networking is not a Darwinian contest for survival, it's inclusive.
Each member of the community is as important as the next. One person - one vote, and by NOT participating your vote is NO. Just look at this site, one of the figurehead sites for the arts in Monmouth county and even the staff don't participate much. But they all have email addresses therefore they COULD participate.
Are the arts just a job? just a more glamorous way to pbutt the time than being a house-frau or office worker? There's no excuse for not updating the Art Alliance website 3 months later, especially when a member volunteered to update it months ago. That sends a message of apathy, so does non-participation in this site by the very staff of the organization that endorses it.
Have a little pride and volunteer YOUR time to make this site work or just quit and let a new generation of people take over as the internet IS the future of the arts. One day it will be buttumed that each gallery opening and play will have a live feed and a podcast for those unable to attend. People will moan about it at first but it'll happen as people want their work recorded for posterity, people want to stay active recording and editing and promoting their work and if you really want to inspire and foster the arts then you are obligated to at least try to make the modern tools work for the community.
The technology is already there, things like blogtv.com and talkshoe.com and places where the public can have their say. I realize that you will be debating about deleting my post, but then you will be negating your mission. The old days of arts organization members hiding behind desks and titles only interacting with the unwashed mbuttes at official functions are over. You lost your right to annonymity when you put your name next to a email address and took the responsibilty of dividing up taxpayer money under the mission of 'inspiring and encouraging the arts in Monmouth County'. So I challenge the members of the Monmouth County Arts Council to put their money where their mouth is and get involved in more than just doing 'their job' and having something to do on a saturday night or just admit that the arts really aren't that important to them and get new staff as the arts are important.
oh and the profanity filter needs to fixed as it is scrambling parts of non profane words instead of ay ess ess it puts butt even if the word is p ay ess ess.