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- Confessions of an IntrovertJuly 3
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The other day I read a very interesting post from Mark Dykeman’s Broadcasting Brain that asked “Is blogging for the introverted soul?” This subject hit very close to home for me, as I am the most introverted and shy person I know. Sometimes I even have problems being around people who I have known since I was in diapers!
This post by Mark has inspired me to publicly explore a bit on why I am involved with social networking and blogging. This is something I have been doing quite a bit of thinking about my introverted soul and how it has interacted with the Plurk vs. Twitter excitement of the past few weeks.
I had plurked and plurked and got the holy grail of the emoticons, I had the 10 invited friends and even greater than 50 Karma and then the algorithm changed and I was supposed to continue plurking like I did at first if I wanted to maintain my status,
which does make sense, but people were even being penalized for sl
- SocialMedianJuly 1
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There are a ton of social news aggregators. The most famous, of course, is Digg. The most used at this point is probably Yahoo! Buzz. Then there’s Reddit, Fark, and a whole slew of niche sites devoted to socially aggregating online news.
So why do we need another one? SocialMedian is just such a service that is currently in Alpha. I’ve been a member for awhile, and while I don’t use it every day, I use it a lot more often than I tend to use Digg or Reddit.
You see, I’m just about Dugg out. I’ve Reddit all. (Okay, I’ll stop with the Farking puns now). SocialMedian, is, to me, a change from the other services. First of all, it’s cleaner. I like the way it looks and feels. But that’s not the only reason I like it.
You see, on Digg and Reddit, I have to work REAL hard to get anything to the front page. I don’t feel that way at SocialMedian. Of course, part of that is bec
- Why Has Twitter Survived?June 11
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Imagine, for a second, that you have bought a new car. It promises to give you good gas mileage, it gives you more headroom, and it is very, very shiny. Sounds nice, doesn’t it. Now imagine that everytime you put your three best friends in it, it dies. Sometimes it sputters its way along, but most of the time, it just out and out shuts itself off. You take it to the mechanic, and he says “It’s a known issue, and we’re working to fix it. Have patience” The mechanic also says “or you could trade up. There’s this nice van over there, and a jet plane in that hangar.”
And that, in a nutshell, is Twitter. It’s the shiny new car that just shuts down whenever it’s carrying too much of a load. So why do users put up with it? What is it about Twitter that prevents people from trading up for the van or the jet plane, or in this case, competing services like Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk and Kwippy? Would these same people put up with similar behavior from a store, an airline, a doctor, or even more to the point, an email or IM service? The answer is, of course, no. So why do they put up with it at Twitter.com?
While I think there are probably a lot of reasons, I think there is one reason that just keeps people coming back: Twitter is where the community is. Sure, Pownce works better (and allows you to attach files), Plurk has that cool timeline and lets you comment on “plurks”, and kwippy looks nice (and also lets you com
- Why do you social network?June 7
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We read daily about how social networking is something that companies large and small need to be actively pursuing because it is where the consumers can be found. After an experience that I have had with a fellow social networker over the past two days, I am suddenly wondering if social networking by consumers is as popular as I am hearing.
Yes, sites like Facebook and MySpace are both common sites among the average social networker (especially high school and college students), but how many of your every day friends and family who are not somehow involved in social media marketing are really involved in sites such as FriendFeed, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc? I’m going to guess not too many. In fact, I can only think of two contacts that I have that are involved in social networking and not involved in social marketing.
I am active enough in social networking sites that I have made the acquaintance of several social media marketers and SEO gurus. I look to these experie
- Work in ProgressMay 29
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Last week I wrote about the name change for my little ol’ blog, Social on the Web. I had some suggestions and traded several emails with a few different people, and I am excited to announce that I am in the process of moving Social on the Web over to a self hosted site.
Additionally, I have three people who have agreed to help me with blogging! We have picked a theme, although I’m waiting to surprise those who were helping me narrow down the theme choices.
Our topic, of course, will be social media, social networking, personal branding, and the like. Knowing that I am only good for one post every week or two, I cannot expect more from the others, so if there is anyone else who might be interested in participating in this new blogging adventure, please let me know through the comments, via Twitter, via StumbleUpon, or email!
Before I wrap this up, I want to give a very special thanks to everyone doing so much to help me with this project: dOgBoi who came up with the idea and has agreed to be a blogger, GemStar38 and Murple who have also agreed to be bloggers, and Timbury who is helping out with the hosting!
