"Share This" Response

The first part of "Share This" didn't have any great revelations to make, though it had some interesting observations. I found it interesting that it essentially argued that social networks are "nothing new" but merely a new hi-tech version of the sort of association that has been going on since the beginning of humankind itself. The idea is somewhat thought-provoking, but I can only partly agree.
It is certainly true that social networks are analogous to clubs and other organizations to some extent, as those are also ways for people with similar interests to meet one another. The parallels are fairly obvious, and I agree that social networks are just building off a basic part of human nature, that is to say, sociability (as the term "social network" would imply, obviously). From this standpoint, there is nothing new to them.
However, I think social networks have  a defining difference between previous forms of social interaction, which is that they can take place with little personal contact. While certainly forms of communication such as letter-writing which involved no direct contact predate social networks by many years, these were primarily for people who knew one another to communicate with each other. Social networks, on the other hand, open the possibility of "meeting" people without having actually met them, which certainly separates them from clubs or anything of that nature, which involve physically being in the same general area.
Basically, while I found the premise the book started out with to be sort of interesting, I don't think it's entirely accurate.