DISQUS

Hutch Carpenter · 1 year ago

Damn - I was just going to blog about my idea for a Cuil plug-in that searches for Google Knols related to things in your FriendFeed stream.

Mark Dykeman · 1 year ago

Hutch, maybe you should use Twhirl to multi-post the link via Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and Identi.ca. D'ya think?

ontarioemperor · 1 year ago

Whether one is focused on tools, or on politics, or on mango bacon, it takes a concerted effort to get out of the writing rut that you're in and write about something else. One day not too long ago, I had to force myself to take a single day and write about anything other than FriendFeed, Twitter, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.

Because my main blog is haphazardly unfocused, I have the luxury of not having to concentrate on a particular topic. Others with a tech focus or a politics focus may not have this luxury, but even then they can force themselves to write about something in their subject area that hasn't been dissected by everyone else.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

yes that is a problem if as a blogger you have already defined your blog by a narrow focus - or it can actually work well for you as you can finely tune your tools to your needs. Maybe it is harder for those bloggers who like to cover a wider range of ideas and subjects in their blogs. Interesting thought - thanks.

gregorylent · 1 year ago

it is the ideas, the context, the progress on the path, the evolution, the development, the human quest, the flow, the energy .... we don't shoot the messenger, we don't praise the messenger .... say thank you very much and keep flying (those in the messenger business can ignore this, think the post was about users)

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

I'm not really sure who the post was really directed at .. I tend to post about the things that have me thinking

Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago

Gregory, I guess my own concerns are really not about the messenger - it was not blaming Twitter or Friendfeed, I think I was only blaming myself for not being able to use the tools in any reasonable way. And hopefully this discussion will reveal something that will help us make a better use of these (and other) tools.

gregorylent · 1 year ago

"reasonable" is a difficult hunt for the whole human race!! keep cooking. enjoy, gregory

Phil Glockner · 1 year ago

Steven, if we are in a corner, we were willingly led there. I think with realization can come action. We just need to be more aware of what our respective goals for our blogs should be, and re-correct to stay on course.

I think it is awful tempting to get sucked in to a community that, like an ouija board, subtly influences the actions of its individual members. But as long as we know this is happening, it can be accounted for.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

True enough on both points ....

Shey · 1 year ago

I've had this in my head for sometime now -- writing a post about it as I comment here. But on the topic of blogging about the tools vs. the repercussions, I think we can have both. Right now FriendFeed is still shiny and new to a lot of people and many are still trying to figure things out. I think this can be helpful to those people, especially since many people have criticized FriendFeed in the past without having experienced it or knowing how others use it.

Mark Dykeman · 1 year ago

At the risk of self-promoting, one of the reasons why I've been writing this four-part series

http://broadcasting-brain.com/2008/07/28/reduci...

about "six degrees of separation" and the impact of social media tools is to try to steer clear of a business-centric or tool-centric focus and look into a "who" and "why" topic, like you've discussed above.

Robert Scoble's post today on PR and tech bloggers once again brought up the whole echo thing where one piece of news is echoed across the blogosphere as a part of the never-ending quest for links, page views, and authority. Everyone (well, OK, some people) wants to be in the vanguard of breaking news.

But that's not going to work for yours truly because:

a) I have a full-time job
b) I don't work in the tech industry
c) I'm not in a good location or time zone and
d) that's not what I really care about

So I'm cool with being an editor and pundit as Phil of Scribkin described today. I'd also like to find more ways to spread social media usage amongst people who don't use it today and maybe, just maybe, help them find practical uses for the stuff.

To conclude, I think a number of people are in danger of painting themselves into a corner. I'm trying to avoid it, even if it means that I step on wet paint on occasion.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

I plan on reading the series when it is all done an posted - gives me a better idea of the whole message.

Jeffro · 1 year ago

human beings have an innate fascination with their tools regardless of profession.

Not sure why, but that statement has me thinking about a group of monkeys in a circle, some of which are smashing their fingers on a laptop keyboard trying to update their social media status.

Steven, you should do an experiment where you don;t visit FriendFeed, Twitter or any other social media site or use a social service. Go on a brainstorming session on the who's and the why's and then come back and tell us what you came up with. Get out of the social storm and into individuality.

This is one reason why I loved the Business 2.0 magazine which is now out of print. They focused on ideas, the who's and the why's instead of the tools.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

As much as I possibly could find such and experiment interesting I'm not sure if I am up to it :) but it is something that I will keep in mind

Rahsheen · 1 year ago

Being that I'm new here and all, I feel like an outsider looking in. I definitely notice the echo chamber and I see the same things covered repeatedly. I also see those who tend to flip things different ways and also step away from the tools to talk about what we're doing with them and how they may affect us.

Sadly, there does tend to be a lot of the former and few of the latter.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

I try hard to do as much as I can with the latter and as little as possible with the former .. sometimes I'm successful - sometimes I'm not.

Christopher Harley · 1 year ago

I agree with Shey; we can have both. The echo chamber effect is greatly reduced if one approaches FriendFeed with search criteria to follow in the 'Everybody' stream. If it doesn't exist, provide it. If it does exist, add to the conversation. I've come to appreciate the professionals that work in social media because they enlighten and steer conversations that others would find uninteresting or arcane. I think this holds true for any subset of public discussion. Ultimately we'll find that FriendFeed becomes a vast search engine where one seeks out information only to find affinity with at least one other individual. Isn't that adding value to the exercise.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

I have a sneaking suspicion that you could be right on the search engine idea even though when I wrote something along those lines I was generally ridiculed over the idea.

Rahsheen · 1 year ago

Your comment actually reminds me that I have not been using FF to it's fullest at all. I have let my network grow on it's own based on who I already knew. I can't believe I let that wonderful search go to waste. I have even tried finding those who share my other interests within the same small social media pool. How silly :)

Christopher Harley · 1 year ago

Give it try, Rahsheen. You know, the same can be said of Twitter after their recent acquisition of Summize. Search for items of interest or even base your searches on geographic proximity by using Twitter Local ( www.twitterlocal.net ) and then add to those Tweets. If the Twitter member isn't on FriendFeed, add them as an 'Imaginary Friend' and that way your comments, tied to their Tweet, will show up in your stream.

Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago

Steve, thanks a lot for this post, it proves that I am really not alone in this feeling. And I do think that we may be too much focused on certain things that do not really matter in general instead of trying to take a broader look. I envy you that you manage to read such a broad selection of blogs yourself, I myself have actually cornered myself by limiting the range to only web 2.0/technology/blogging staff and I just don't feel that I actually can consume anything beyond (simply because I have no time even with spending every waking moment online and sleeping 6 hours per day) - and this is truly disturbing. I am glad that other bloggers feel the same and hopefully that means that we will eventually learn to stop for a moment and try to see things in perspective.