chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in Why Join Another Social Network

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Why Timeshare — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:04:48 -0000

Do this is a way to make sure you can get in front of more businesses / business owners..

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

George — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:54:59 -0000

There probably isnt too many, each usually has some unique quality thats makess joining sometimes irresistible. I just recently joined
www.caribnu.com which is tailored more to the caribbean,so i had to join

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

eric : gardenfork.tv — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:19:28 -0000

As has already been said, its a full time job to keep up on all these sites. I use Twitter mainly, have a MySpace page for gardenfork..tv, a linkedin page for myself, and will start a facebook page. But one can't work and join every new social media platform that launches, its too much social media clutter.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

David Kowarsky — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 11:24:57 -0000

Hi Chris-

I use G-Talk as an extension of Gmail, AIM, Facebook, and Livejournal. I have a linked in profile, which I should leverage more.

I got "suckered" into Facebook when it was just a new way to organize contact information with a reliable way to reach people system built in. No one had to sell me on the benefits of "social network." The Harvard online facebook sucked and this was easier than going into SSH and using PH to get someone's info. I wasn't looking for more than an address book that I never had to update and a failsafe messenging system. By and large, I don't use it for much more than a "Directory+" suite of services. Walls are fun, and mini-feeds let me "stalk" all but effortlessly. I like to know what's happening in the lives of my friends.

When I started, I wasn't concerned with "building a brand" or "my online presence." Now, these concerns are inescapable.

Sometimes, I kind of want my innocence back. I'm not saying I was EVER the type to do "CRAZY SHIT"(tm) and have pictures of it everywhere or things like that but there are things I consider it useful to let my friends know that I don't know it is as useful to let anyone who might contact me for business know. Without groups (and you know, even if facebook HAD groups, I feel like I would shy away from setting it up that much for this purpose) it's hard to filter.

Meanwhile, I want to categorize my contacts, but everyone else* wants me to have them everywhere at once so they can know about ANY opportunity for ANYTHING ever, cause even if they can't help, maybe one of their friends can. Even ideologically, social networks work cause they break down boundaries, right?

For example, I'm getting friend requests from 2 degrees removed, people I really don't know.

Am I obligated to say yes to these people just because they may be "useful" to me as a social networking tool, because I might meet them and people take rejection badly? Should I let them see/know as much about me as people I actually consider my friends?

LJ seems to have a pretty big disconnect from the blogosphere as a whole. I can keep that personal pretty easily, but Facebook lost that when they became a "platform."

So, is there something to do about this issue? Other than be Friends with EVERYONE you know and deal with businesswise too? (not easy in many cases, not possible in some). Not that I'm unhappy that you and Jeff are on Facebook with me, but I think the answer for some is that maybe, different platforms for different actual networks. It gets VERY tough when platform identity = your name/your real identity, as it does for Facebook. You balance these concerns wonderfully. Do you just not have them?

-Dave

*("I" and "everyone else" are generalized pronouns representing people with competing interests in this situation based on perspective.)

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Karen (aka MrsB) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:45:25 -0000

Honestly, I dread it when a new social networking site emerges. I KNOW I'll end up joining it, not particularly because I want to but because that's where all my friends are and I don't want to be left behind talking to no one but myself if I don't. sigh......

I have accounts on them all but Twitter and Flickr are the ones that I use faithfully and check daily. All the rest, I join but don't really push or get that involved in. I read all of the email, and click on the links but I don't aggressively promote anything myself (just not enough time in my life as it is...) Of course, if everyone in my social circle abandons Twitter for Pownce, things will change and I'll go with the crowd so as not to be on the outside looking in...

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Ellen — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 07:08:38 -0000

It's funny, when I joined Twitter I couldn't wrap my head around what it could do for me, especially having no friends. But it opened up my world and I have friends who are active in social media like you and Jeff Pulver, Jim Long, etc. By being active on Twitter I stay connected with the ever changing world of social media.

I resisted joining MySpace for such a long time but ended up joining because that is how my nieces and nephews connect with each other and I could become part of their network.

Facebook has become an extension of my Twitter friends and contacts I have made in the blogging world. It's nice to be able to follow what people are up to and joining in on different groups. It is more a professional networking tool than MySpace.

I agree with you that LinkedIn is really just a large address book. I don't visit that site daily or even weekly.

Twitter resonates with me because of its ease of use and the number of tools available (see my post 4 Tools That Make Twitter Easier For Me (and Maybe You)). Pownce is nice but lacking the tools to make keeping track of friends and sets easy. Hopefully those tools will start appearing because Pownce does have potential to really fill the microblogging/instant messaging market with its ease of posting content, sharing files and links.

I would love a desktop app that ran in my system tray that would notify me of new messages/posts for all of the different networks I belong to and when I open it up would allow me to see all of what is happening under each of my profiles while allowing me to post content. Sort of like a start page of my social networking profiles but making it so I don't have to have a browser window always opened. Does that makes sense?

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

chrisbrogan — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:35:08 -0000

Julian- I totally agree with both those needs. I definitely want to do that sort of thing.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Julian Bond — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:33:28 -0000

As we join more and more of these, we really need Marc Canter's vision of being able to easily:-

1) Populate a profile with standard text from our definitive source

2) Import our list of friends list from our other YASNs.

There's not a lot of mileage in the first for the YASN owner except to reduce friction during the signup process. But the second should appeal to them. Which is why the few that do it tie it into their invitation system. But even there it's usually one way. "Give me all *your* email addresses so I can send invite spam but no you can't have the friend's list you've built up in *our* system."

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Francis Shepherd — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:19:27 -0000

Good points everyone! For me, it is more about experimentation in connectedness and avenues to cultural channels and information feeds. The social dialogs, focused threads mixed in with randomness, are stimulating and create a convergence buzz. The challenge for me, is to wrangle the various models and channels into one centralized feed - an "über social network" of sorts. There isn't enough time in the day to sift through the complete aggregation, but found gems and nuggets are true intellectual treasures. The dynamic nature of personal relationships and social bonds evolving make the quest very worthwhile.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Jean-Ann (Jane) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:18:08 -0000

Hi Chris,
First of all great post...thank you. As you know this is something I have struggled with as well. How many social networks is enough, but yet I still keep joining the new ones and playing with them. :-)

The only problem is that for the most part besides Twitter and Facebook it is the same group of techno-geek friends that I am associating with in most of those social networks (myspace is a bit different because that is more mainstream and common ) so I am not really expanding my universe in the social media realm. However, occasionally one of my friends introduces me to a new friend and makes it all worth it.

Social networks are definitely addicting and fascinating. I was in love with Facebook for the lifelogging aspect long before the open API, however, now I really am. Personally for me even though all these new social networks take up a bit of my time they are all also passions and interests of mine. I still have my favorites that I return to and regularly use, but I definitely like to be in on the new/hot ones....even if it is with just me and my posse.

Why do I join endless social networks? Networking, education, new forms of communication, and simply just because they are fascinating. :-)

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Fleep Tuque — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:13:18 -0000

You know what's funny? Twitter is just like a really poorly designed BBS with a catchy web/IM/sms interface for the "new" digital age.

It's no surprise to me that Twitter has caught on so heavily with the SL crowd since SL provides absolutely NO reliable asynchronous message system for a group audience/conversation. If I had any doubt, reading the comments convinced me since the single feature that seems to be distinguishing Pownce is the ability to group your mates and have more specific conversations with a more specific set of people. Rooms anyone?

Maybe I'm just showing my age, but tweets are like x messages over time, over IM, and over the phone and now Pownce is trying to get back to grouping your conversations around a common topic.

So do I need another? Like a hole in the head, but my BBS community is stagnant so I keep searching for good conversation with smart people and Twitter is partly filling the niche but doesn't do it all, so I'll keep looking for the right interface and the right group of people that suits me best. And every time I try a new app, I find at least one or two new people who make an impression or become a new source of information and you can't beat that with a stick.

Even if it did overrun my email with all those notices. Yikes.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Julian Bond — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:00:10 -0000

With a bit of work you can route all the status updates from all your friends on all the services into one place. Typically using Twitter to combine them all. Note here that Facebook is the least open of all of them. It's Ecademy centric but I wrote some instructions here
http://www.ecademy.com/node...

You wrote: "Twitter and Pounce and Jaiku are conversations. ". They're really not. Like Blogs, they're monologues. One-to-many, one-to-few. Neither of them answer the need for few-to-few conversations. Few-To-Few is a neglected area of study which is ironic when Mailing lists and IRC are some of the oldest technologies on the intarwebs. It's somewhat comical watching people try to use the @name convention on Twitter to turn it into something it isn't.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Kim Fenolio — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 02:08:21 -0000

It's interesting to read this and then consider the ramifications of it all. I was invited to Pownce today and tried it out. I really like it and it has some huge potential. The ability to send to specific groups of people? Heck, the ability to GROUP people rocks.

I've already invested so much time and effort creating a community of friends on Twitter that the move to Pownce seems such the daunting task. It is incredibly interesting and like I said, it has potential. I'm vested in Twitter and that's where people know to look for my updates about personal, business or fun.

It's saddeningly time-consuming spending time working and conversing within each of these different social networks. Yes, it builds great conversation and community for friendship and my business; if only I had a clone of me to manage and converse within those networks so I could spend more time getting the actual work done.

Is the idea of getting an account with each of these social networks, posting your website or social network of choice and pointing them in that direction to converse with you out of the question? But then does it come back down to each user's preference for a social network? I wonder.

Maybe it's a matter of staying focused and being realistic.. setting boundaries for ourselves and creating goals in which we use these networks for.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Rosa Say — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 01:09:33 -0000

Aloha Chris, I appreciate your sharing our conversation here, for it's always good to get more thoughts ... and I've been known to change my mind!

This is the (current :-) thinking I'm at; dedicated quality versus web-candy quantity. I own a full-time business that is blessing me with tons of activity both offline and on, and there are only so many programs I can concentrate on and sound half-way intelligent with.

And Chris, we'll always be connected; even if the web sent away tomorrow in some magical puff of smoke.

Keep up the brilliant conversation you energize us with, Rosa

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

jeffpulver — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:29:11 -0000

Hi Chris,

Really enjoyed the analysis.

For the month of July, I have decided to continue to be loyal to twitter, to continue to invest my time with Facebook and when the urge to share my experiences real-time happen to broadcast on BlogTV.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Bryce Moore — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:42:22 -0000

I don't think it's possible to properly give all of these networks the proper attention and not make it a full-time job. There's just too many of them now and too much involved with each one. It would drive a person insane to try to keep up with all of it.

That being said, I keep an account on almost all these services, but most of those profiles are plain pointers back to my home page.

I resisted Twitter for the longest time, then I remembered the words of Eric where he said you can't slam on things and claim to "not get them" if you don't give them a chance.

Twitter has expanded my potential audiences and expanded the width and breadth of my virtual social circle, but it also harkens back to the old IRC-style chat rooms as a good place to slough off the occasional "random" thought or idea. For that, it serves its purpose for me - simply and effectively.

To me the best social networks are still the old simple ones: e-mails and blogs with comments, along with, to a lesser extent, instant message systems. Twitter is an extension of those. Like any service, it will hopefully take feedback from its users and make future improvements.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Rob — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:32:55 -0000

Thanks for this Chris. I had just turned on my computer to sort through the new media tools I am using and begin the process of deciding how I wanted them to work for me.
I had been following the conversation on twitter re: pownce and couldn't help but mutter a muffled 'ugh'.
So, very timely my friend. Thanks.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Evo — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:31:14 -0000

I get asked these same questions on a fairly regular basis. Like you, my friends look at me a little strange when I start preaching the SM Gospel. And while I agree with many of the points you raise and those raised by others you cited, there is one thing to keep in mind:

Regardless of how hard you try and control a conversation -- you can't. People can and will talk about the things they want to talk about where they want to talk about them. It may be on Facebook. It may be on Jaiku. It may be in dozens of niche social media applications yet to be discovered -- and a few thousand yet to be created.

You *can't* control them. But you can try to keep informed about them and then try and add your own commentary where you feel it appropriate.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

$7460 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:26:45 -0000

Aloha Chris, good article. One thing to include is the possibility that we will change the way we interact with these applications. The notion of "keeping up" is not sustainable across the plethora of locations. However, perhaps this could be supplemented by other possibilities. Stowe Boyd has some great ideas on this: http://www.stoweboyd.com/me... and http://www.stoweboyd.com/me...

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

David Tames — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:11:09 -0000

As someone of is often unable to spend time in front of connected devices (when I'm on a shoot I can't direct or do camera work and Twitter at the same time, nor can I do it when I'm in an intense editing session) I have kept the active social network count low, but there's something about Twitter that keeps me checking in once in a while. It's the specific people who are on it and what they are saying. It starts with the quality of the conversation. Do we need more networks to be on? I'd rather see the good ones evolve to meet the changing needs of users.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Lynette Radio — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:08:19 -0000

Seems like today was the day for blogging this [lynetteradio.com]. I think the whole Pownce'd thing brought me to my limit as well. If I have to Twitter to get an invite to Pownce, maybe I'm not as cool as I'd like to think some days. Do I really need to have the same conversation, with the same people, on a different platform?

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

chrisbrogan — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:43:31 -0000

Although... Pownce has SETS. That's important. Groups.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Steven Hodson — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:34:02 -0000

As I said in my post about Pownce all it is right now is a big YAWN especially without having an API for developers to mess around with.

With Twitter as soon as there was an API it really began to florish which is evident by the number of 3rd party goodies available for it.

Maybe Pownce needs a special event to get it kick started much like SXSW conference did for Twitter

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Dan — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:20:51 -0000

Great read, Chris. I think one has to sample the options out there and make an informed decision from that - I tried Jaiku, glanced at Pownce and settled on Twitter. That's not to say I don't still have accounts with other sites/services, I just focus on one of them more the next.

Right now, Twitter/MySpace/Blogging/Skype/MSN/Flickr are the main items I use. I must say, I find Facebook annoying and cluttered. The fact that it has a tiny local (Ireland) user base only adds to my dislike of the site. In comparison, MySpace or (dare I say it) Bebo have thousands more local users - thus making them undoubtedly more "sociable" and appealing.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

phil campbell — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:01:42 -0000

it's just a really good way for the governments of the world not to just give us a "number" but to rss feed our brainspace out for free rent.

Welcome to the Borg.