Peter’s Soapbox

Social Networking - Friend and Follow Everyone?

I’ve noticed a few “web-celebs” have a tendency to “friend” and “follow” everyone who “friends” and “follows” them. My first impression remains: what can anyone do with all that chatter?

For example, Robert Scoble, an “A-List blogger,” claims he follows everyone that follows him. He’s got 5,000 friends in Facebook (the current limit), and is following 6,946 (at the time of this writing) people on Twitter. Author J.C. Hutchins has 741 followers and is following 745.

I can’t imagine what that’s like. I suppose since I review my Twitter and Facebook feeds via RSS, my method simply would not work, and I’d miss, well almost everything. From a “snapshot in time” perspective, these guys’ method may be more interesting, but if your motive is more like mine, to actually track everything that goes into your feed, it’s practically impossible to manage the sheer volume of noise that is going to be flying through that stream.

So, just for kicks, I am following more of the folks who follow me on Twitter. If I end up not following you after a period of time, I apologize in advance. I’m sure it’s not because the content of your feed is boring, I just don’t have the time to track it all (and play World of Warcraft). Okay, maybe it’s because it was a tiny bit boring, but please don’t assume that. Besides, it’s hard to compete with World of Warcraft.

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice Social Networking…

Scott Willsey recently asked how I am trying to keep afloat in the sea of social networks in which I swim. First off, I’m starting to ignore a bunch of them. I rarely log in to Facebook, Pownce, or LinkedIn anymore. I have never logged in to Myspace since I created my account. I am taking steps to synchronize Twitter and Jaiku, both of which are catch-alls for the rest of my public social stuff. See below:

The blue links are updated manually, meaning I go to del.icio.us and tag links there when I feel like it. The rest are all automatic. Twitter receives all of its stuff via twitterfeed.com, and Jaiku subscribes to my Twitters directly.Update: Jaiku does not appear to be reading my Twitter feed. I pointed it at my Twitter feed this morning, and over 12 hours have passed with no updates being ready, so it’s pretty much an island.

Twitter this!

I couldn’t find a “twitter this” bookmarklet last night, so I made my own. Add this link to your bookmarks to enable you to automagically copy and paste a link into your Twitter status box.

Social Networking Update

So, in the span of a few weeks, I’ve gone from having nearly no social networking experience to having accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Del.icio.us, and Flickr. Aside from always thinking I’m supposed to spell Twitter with no ‘e’, the hardest parts have been deciding where to post things, and how to aggregate all this stuff, as well as my blog. I suppose, if I sign up for a couple more services, then I can follow this article and post all of my Twitters and Jaikus and Pownces at the same time. I could even include my Tumbleblogs from Tumblr, except that I don’t have a Tumblr account. Not yet anyway. I’ll probably have one by tomorrow. Of course, they would all wind up in my Facebook profile, but then I’d have three or for duplicate entries for everything I did. Talk about information overload.
Right now, I can display my Twitter and Jaiku posts in my Facebook profile, but the only Pownce application I can find for Facebook is currently broken.
I’ve been thinking about turning my personal blog (or at least, the articles I mark as “Personal”) into entries on my Facebook profile. That would let me share all of the gory, personal details that nobody wants to read with only my closest friends! (Seriously, who wants to read all these self-important personal updates? Do you really care what kind of toothpaste I’m using?)

Facebook is World of Warcraft (in disguise)

It just hit me, while I was scouring my old address book and AIM buddy list, that social networking is really a MMORPG in disguise.

For the last three nights, I’ve spent more time digging through my old contacts, address books, buddy lists, and memory than I have killing orcs, retrieving Rethban Ore, and mining Fel Iron! My wife says I’ve spent as much time grinding through my contacts as she has spent grinding for rep in Felwood.

Take today, for example. Here I am, after a full day of work, and a couple of hours of WoW, and what am I doing? More work! (Say that with a woodcutter accent.) My LinkedIn network is 80% complete. I just invited another colleague. That will put me at 85%. But wait, that’s not all! Once that’s done, I need to finish my profile. Yes, I need to quest to get my profile complete too. I need to post my resume, my interests, and my past work experience, etc. All of these things add up to a complete profile, which, I guess, is kinda like hitting 60. I’m assuming there will be more afterward, like, the LinkedIn Expansion Pack or something. Maybe the “Job Hunting Crusade?”

I have even contemplated using LinkedIn or Facebook’s built in “invite your contacts” (read “spam”) feature, to invite people who are not part of said network, to join. So far, my hatred for spam has outweighed my temptation to do this, and I have not sent an invitation to anyone who is not already a member. But I thought about it…

And don’t even get me started on my lame Facebook account, with four measly friends in it, one of whom I cannot even say “how I know” because Facebook does not have an “Other” option like LinkedIn. The more I compare these two social networking sites, the more I think of World of Warcraft versus GuildWars. “This one has henchmen!” “Oh yeah, this one lets me invite people from my Yahoo! Messenger account!” The parallels are shockingly similar…

Here are some interesting parallels. Draw your own conclusions.