Re-Connecting

In the past couple days, I’ve been re-connecting with old friends who I don’t see as much as I used to. Not in the real world though. On Twitter and to a lesser extent on Facebook. Susan Mernit talks about being enchanted by the status updates she is getting in her Facebook feed. I get that same experience with my Twitter feed. As more and more of the people I know start using Facebook and Twitter, I am starting to get re-connected to a set of people that I kind of lost contact with.

My friend Wences is a great example. He started Patagon.com and we made a very nice hit together almost a decade ago. He’s gone on to sail around the world, have a family, and try to change the world. I’ve gone back to being a VC.

Somehow we ended up following each other on Twitter and this weekend we ended up talking about sushi in Sao Paulo. We’ve traded a few emails over the years so you could say we stayed in touch. But not really. Hearing that he’s at a nursery or eating sushi in Sao Paulo is just different. It’s like you are chatting on the phone or something.

This "status update" thing, powered by social utlities like Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, Jaiku, and most likely a number of other services is a big deal. At least it has been for me.