Charles Stanhope

Charles Stanhope at

By default private, I meant my use of an email service is mostly invisible to others unless specifically addressed, and the contents of my email conversations are not visible even if you happen to know my email address. If you don't know my email address, you may not even be able to discover it unless I happen to leave it someplace public. You can use email in a public manner, but that's not the default, and generally requires deliberately addressing or using external services (unless communicating with a small group).

I didn't mean to quibble about the numbers too much. I'm just reflecting on what I've seen on social networks, and reflecting on past social networks like forums, chat rooms, and other things. It seems like there has always been a large number of them regardless of the technology used. Facebook and Twitter seem like anomalies.

Having said all that, I also don't mean to argue against the idea that the large number of places to join of dubious quality is an obstacle to adoption. I think it is, and you bring up important issues. These issues were certainly on my mind before I created another account.