How much social do you need?

Ping.fm inspired this thought: How much social do you need? Social networking is everywhere - MySpace, Facebook, Okrut and Hi-5 - standout in the mainstream as recognizable names in social networking. To me they’re avenues for ad revenue, not meaningful for social interaction. For me both MySpace and Facebook are loaded with meaningless “apps” that serve as social interaction distractions, set there for one purpose alone: eyeballs and money. Both of which are great and serve the purposes of their CEOs and board members; and teens. (IMHO.)

Me, I’m 30-something — I’ve been waiting since my teens to call myself that. Social media is supposed to be about sociallizing. That’s why I was so happy to find Tumblr. I could create my on MySpace or Facebook, without the distractions of “apps”. But let’s get back to my original thought: How much social do you need? More specifically, Ping.fm.

First off, I thought Ping.fm was a Last.fm clone until I finally followed the link and discovered that it has nothing to do with social music listening/sharing, but was in place to send out — or PING — your microblogging thoughts to several services, including Tumblr.

Neat — but I give them my passwords to ALL my social hubs? Hmmm… And why would I need to be on Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr, Linkdin, identi.ca, and Friendfeed? Friendfeed?? Isn’t that a social hub aggregator?? Doesn’t that service allow all of my “friends” across these different services to keep up with what I’m tweeting, plurking, tweeking, powncing now? With Ping.fm I can re-post my posts?

So how much social do you need?