Comments on: The Social Networking Implications of Social Networking Tools

By: tecosystems » Big Brother is Watching You. On Twitter.

tecosystems » Big Brother is Watching You. On Twitter. — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:00:51 +0000

[...] the intimate details of my day to day existence. But I need to consider it, still, because as I’ve discussed in the past, Twitter is a personal tool for me first, professional tool second. A distant [...]

By: Richard Sprague WebLog : Tinkering and plunging

Richard Sprague WebLog : Tinkering and plunging — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:17:40 +0000

[...] why I agree with sogrady at Redmonk who [...]

By: Doug aka nullvariabl

Doug aka nullvariabl — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:24:19 +0000

I really appreciate what you’ve said! I disagree that mobile phone etiquette has improved however. So many people let themselves be absorbed by the phone and become assholes in the process. It didn’t used to be this bad. Now theres always someone on the phone (concerts, movies etc) missing out on the experience because of it and ruining it often for the rest of us. See Wil Wheaton’s post here: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/05/bring-on-the-ni.html

for a great example.

By: Stormy

Stormy — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:45:22 +0000

Maybe it makes sense for some people to have two twitter accounts or two sets of twitter friends:
1 – one that they care about everything they do and want to know what they had for supper and when they got up. To me these are all people I know well “in real life”.
2 – the larger group, the river. To me this is the coffee shop, the community at large, the feeling of working with a group of like minded people, discover new ideas and trends, etc.

By: Ric

Ric — Sat, 24 May 2008 07:56:38 +0000

“sogrady is someone I follow” – given that we are trampling all over his blog, I sort of took that as read :’D

I’ve never followed A-listers, and I’ve given up on aggregators (eg Techcrunch etc) because it’s more of an avalanche than a river, with lots of re-hashed stuff and little originality (twitter version of a PR release?) – Scoble is a bit scary, because he does seem to keep up with most of what’s going on around him (I assume he does little else but blog, vlog and tweet; either that or he has dicovered an extra 6 hrs/day!). I’ve met maybe a dozen of the people I follow on Twitter in real life … and most of them are on the other side of the world! BTW – when I used the word “you” I was speaking somewhat generically, rather than directing the comment at YOU.

Nice discussion …. not everything happens in 140 characters!

By: Ian Skerrett

Ian Skerrett — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:32:52 +0000

Ric,

I actually don’t start with people I know. A lot of the people I follow I have never heard of before and I purposely don’t follow the Scoblizer’s of the world. Maybe that is why I don’t see a river. Of course people like sogrady is someone I follow.

Ian

By: Ric

Ric — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:31:26 +0000

It’s a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ situation – I found that once I hit some magic number of people I followed, stuff DID come round again – partly because (almost by definition) there is some overlap of interests amongst at least some of those people. For instance, if you only follow two people whose tweeting bent is (eg) SOA (or MLB if that makes more sense, Steven!)- you might easily miss something useful. Follow a dozen or more, and you’ll probably see it again.

Another key element for me is following people on multiple continents in multiple timezones – that also increases the chance of the river bringing a particular log (striper?) past your fishing spot (and incidentally helps avoid any insularity in my thinking).

Ian – I follow people for their educational potential as well – but I couldn’t possibly know who they all might be BEFORE I follow them (obviously you start with people you already know, but serendipity is a wonderful thing!)

Reputationist – I think I disagree that “all social networking activities are functional” – lots of them (and I think this is one of Steve’s points) are more personal – REAL friendships where there is no thought of commercial “goal” in the interaction.

And finally, Steven – I guess I’ll have to work harder and be more interesting to get that follow-back … *grins wickedly*

By: Ian Skerrett

Ian Skerrett — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:32:50 +0000

This is the same approach I take with twitter. I really don’t get this ‘its a river’ approach. I follow people that I think might educate me on new stuff. Rarely does something come back around.

By: Reputationist

Reputationist — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:11:38 +0000

I think your approach makes sense because I take much the same view. At one point it was quantity over quality – now its the reverse. I reached several of my initial goals as to how many people I would be connected and then turn to what kind. There only some my recruiters and such being connected with makes sense to connect with.

The real issue for me is that all social networking activities are functional – meaning that they are used in strategic ways to accomplish goals. They need to have just so much heff and then then targeting. So you are not along in believing the way you do. Thanks for giving our view a voice.