DISQUS

Ari Herzog · 1 year ago

Twitter has now become an aggregation and information tool for me for learning about people and events - it has lost much of its "conversation" nature that it used to have. This is the case for many other people, and not just the big bloggers and early-adopters any more.

Perhaps that's because you're following 1,200 people? I follow about 200 and while I agree there is a lot of noise and I have similar tracking systems in place for this and that, I've received a few emails in recent days from people conversing with me on the service and deciding to visit my linked blog and then fill out a form to send me an email. That's a lot of steps but it's worth the effort for we're now conversing in email and other media.

ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 1 year ago

Ari, that's great to hear. I am finding a similar experience. However, today I felt like I finally used social media for its intent - broadcasting a new website launch. Past that, these mediums really only seem to offer 1) a way to "meet new people" and 2) a quick "ping" to see if someone can connect in a more meaningful way.

Jesse Stay · 1 year ago

At 200 though I'm willing to bet you're unable to read each message. That was my point - that most people on a lot of these services are no longer able to read everything you post, which degrades the quality of your network. Without the proper tools or framework provided by each network (I'd like to also add tagging to my list above), it makes it harder for your followers to listen to all of your posts. And I still argue that having a network of 1000 followers on Twitter is not much different than 4-500 on FriendFeed or elsewhere as far as quality of conversation and strength of relationship goes.

Ari Herzog · 1 year ago

Jesse, you mention terms like "degrading the quality of a network." I know what you mean, so let me turn the table back at you and ask how many connections you have on LinkedIn and how many friends you have on MySpace and Facebook? If you follow 1200 tweeters, is the number similar on the other sites, especially if you're mashing them up?

Or... do you keep certain social networking sites smaller, more "friendly" and less "let's get one more person to join my network?"

Jesse Stay · 1 year ago

Ari, quite honestly I'm not that active on either LinkedIn or
Myspace. I do use LInkedIn, but I don't use it necessarily to listen
(I don't think it's very effective for communication, except on an as-
needed basis - communication isn't ongoing on LinkedIn). LinkedIn is
more of a way to share my business profile with others on an as-needed
basis. For MySpace I just haven't spent much time building up a
network - a lot of that is that I don't have much of a way to pay
attention on Myspace, and Facebook gives me more opportunities to
listen for a similar type service.

For me, it's not at all about "let's get one more person to join my
network", but rather finding new ways to bridge relationships and meet
new people. On Facebook, Twitter, and every site I make the conscious
decision to have a presence on I look at each user's profile and
activity stream before I accept their request. I want to know who
they are, what they post, and what they're up to. Regardless, it's
still hard to listen to each and every person - certain sites make
that easier than others. I wish there was a better way - the site
that figures this out will bring the strongest relationship and
network potential for individuals, and I hope I'm on the one that
figures that out. I'm not sure if there is a simple solution though.

But you do have a point - perhaps there is a point where following a
certain number is too much, and actually degrades the experience. I
don't think I've fully hit that, but I do know it's harder to listen
to people on sites like Twitter vs. sites with a little more
organization and listening tools like FriendFeed or Facebook.

ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 1 year ago

You know, I'm glad to see all these comments seeing the same thing I saw 3 months ago when I started really tuning into Twitter and especially FF. FF is a great aggregator of information, for me. However, with both mediums I am finding that I scan through posts of interest, and still maintain my RSS feeds for steady reading.

What is interesting is that if social media was intended to build communities, I think this will still happen, but there is a critical mass where the noise becomes too much and we have to have filters to siphon out the useful information.

I think instead, social media has turned into a newstand or magazine rack. You see some glitz and glam during the scan and close in to consume the content, but my feeling is there is a lot being missed this way.

I need more meaningful ways to consume my media, but I also need the exposure to things I might not have picked up otherwise.

I have yet to see useful logic in FF, outside of filtering and searching, that anticipates what media channels or conversations I might like to consume. I find that I still must parse through a lot of noise to get to useful content.

As they say though, beauty is in th eye of the beholder, and one man's trash is another's treasure... all that cliche' has some bearing here.

Great article, and I will say that the small number of friends I have found, I interact with a great deal and often find myself bouncing ideas off of them, and they me. That is what social media was intended to promote.

Romain · 1 year ago

My FriendFeed and Twitter being the 3rd and 4th traffic leads I do think my followers are listening to me.

Jesse Stay · 1 year ago

Yes (I still get traffic from Twitter, too), but what percentage of your followers on each service are listening to you? Also, how many followers do you have and on average how many people are they following? I think there is a threshold - I'm not sure what the tipping point is, but I think the quality does degrade at some point.

Test · 1 year ago

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