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Principally I noticed that for the amount of time you invest in twitter, when not in one of the major cities so twitter decreases in value. That's why I've moved to friendfeed. It's a far richer, idea driven community where you are not alone. When people are not conversation you enrich yourself with ideas, finding new concepts and exploring them.
When people are there, and there is a comment storm (for lack of a better descriptor, not meant as a negative thing) then we get to know some new people. As time continues so we get access to more and more information, and through knowing their character we know which people are most interesting to us in terms of ideas.
Forget the Gary Vee and others of this world. It's about the small people and small community bases, made up of early adopters, that are the most interesting, because they are the most passionate users, getting the most benefit.
At the moment the social media is about the social media but imagine in a year or two when more people start to use the social media for other topics. Imagine the olympics on a friendfeed room for example. You could have rooms by country and by event. It will bring the conversation to a higher level of interest.
In the social media future I see twitter is going to fade into the background because more than what people are doing, people are interested in what you're thinking and why. The short form isn't suited to that.
and what is this value that we seem to be placing on conversations .. especially when the conversation is continually being splintered across so many venues?
I went to quite a lot of events I found out about through the people I met on twitter.
As a uni student as well, because so many people are on facebook it's a great way of seeing what events to go to and to have a follow up. With the presence we have through social media we do add to our social life in the physical world.
Lot's of the people I used to follow on twitter go to a lot of the events and I could to, if I was willing to spend a large amount of money. That's because I would have to fly to the events most of the time.
If more local people were more active on all of these sites then there's a good chance it wouldn't be noise, because I would be on location, rather than living by proxy.
I agree with you that there is a lot of noise, the question is how soon till that social media noise becomes local, and therefore more relevant.
I am on friendfeed at the moment precisely because I want to find a better, more involved of engaging with people. That's why I'm commenting on this blog post, among many others.
I use both Twitter and FriendFeed but I do find the value for time spent much better on FriendFeed but even there name power plays a very big part of response per contribution.
But then this is what I am finding is the whole basis of Social Media - the name has the power and if you don't have the name / brand power your experience can border on mundane and useless.
The reason social media got so popular and so much press is because the 10% is so big and the total number of people involved in social media is growing. :-)
My estimate is that social media has crossed the chasm (http://bit.ly/crossing-the-chasm) during US Presidential Elections campaign last year.
Cheers!
Shonzilla
I've used the US presidential elections as a reference and turning point in the timeline of social media when many more people started using it, got involved in it and many stayed involved after having realized the potential/immediacy of the medium. In my view, the US presidential elections were the beachhead for the penetration of social media (to reuse the marketing lingo).
Cheers!
Shonzilla
My view: http://scalableintimacy.com/?p=475
But reflexive cynicism is no less a sin.
I think it's hard to argue that the Web hasn't become a significant force in the evolution of human society. Social media is changing - incrementally, perhaps, but measurably - both the way we identify content of interest to us in that medium, and the way we establish relationships with other human beings outside of it. I think that's a big deal.
I would be foolish to say that the Web hasn't changed our lives dramatically but the Web is not just Social Media. Social Media is only a small slice of the web and as of yet it's implications of change are still suspect.
sure I might get cranky and a little exuberant with my choice of language sometimes but I wouldn't give up these kind of opportunities to have conversations with smarter people than myslef - this is how we all learn after all.
Thank you for being a part of this conversation.
It's the same with friendships offline. We meet people, we enjoy meeting them one or two more times and we go a different way. It's the same thing in the internet and twitter age but with a difference. Here there is a backlog of past friendships and relationships.
How many of the phone numbers on your mobile phone do you still use for example? 10-15. Of the friends you have on facebook how many have you known for years? How many of them will you see again?
Friendships have not changed in nature. The way we experience them has.
I hate the "I'm followed by three thousand people and following two thousand". I really do think that notion is a silly one. I no longer engage with those people. As a group we need to find the people that value us as much as we value them.
I can count on one hand the number of people in real life who I would classify as friends. Those are the people who I may not see for months but the next time we cross paths it is like no time has passed and we know that if either of us in that small group needs help there is no questions of "do I have time" or "sorry but I have something more important to do". There is never a moment's hesitation - everything gets dropped and you help that friend out.
Now when it comes to my online life I have a wider circle of people who I would call friend in the same way. Many of them have come as a result of knowing each other for over ten year due to the WinExtra Community Forums - because that place in many ways is an extended family. When it comes to those I have met since taking a more public stance on the net and being involved in a larger community I wold say that once again I can count the number of people who I truly look upon as friends on two hands. They are people of totally different backgrounds and in some cases getting them in the same room would be like mixing gasoline and lit matches but I would have it no other way because they are my friends.
The rest of the people I come in contact with on the net are people I might find interesting and I can learn a lot from but that doesn't make them friends in the same sense as those above. But what I have found in this Social Media ecosphere is that there is no clear understanding of the difference anymore and it is only getting worse. Friends have indeed become a commodity that can be sold along with some social media service account.
I don't agree that the way we experience friendships have changed because true friendship isn't an experience - it is a part of our souls. Maybe the way we are experiencing acquaintances is changing - on that I would agree.
BTW as a side note - thank you very much for being a part of this conversation - you and the others in this thread have made what I originally wrote even more valuable and very interesting as well as thought provoking.
I think we need a shift away from computers towards mobile phones at an affordable price. That's when we'll see the biggest shift in attitude.
All of these social media events are about just this thing, about meeting new people and making new friends that way. We've seen the pictures and the communications that take place after an event and we see how engaging it was. I say "was" because there has been a shift. As a lot of those I established good friendships with, in the real world, started to network more so they felt the need to follow more and more people, which is easy.
The moment when social media lose their value is when those you meet lose contact with you, are not willing to aknowledge that you've thought about what they're doing and reacted to that. It is quite evident on twitter for example. As more people join so the personal links are being diluted. Rather than retweet what people are saying why not converse about it instead.
Conversations are the way we used to follow up a blog post, a tweet and more. By conversing people were personally more engaged in the mediums they are using. It took both time and engagement. That engagement is what made it so interesting and pleasant to meet those people in person. It allowed a new friendship forming pattern. Of course that's still the case but the challenge is to find those people.
I don't disagree that it's a waste of time, but at the same time I'm fascinated by the idea that one day as more people use these tools so the ability to have more personal engagement will get better.
I find myself moving back to the long form today, through blogs, friendfeed and commenting to engage on a deeper level with people, to discuss ideas as much as anything. After all why not take a few minutes and discuss things through the written word? It's not a waste of time. It's a learning experience.
We are in the early days of all of these discussions and as a result the conversations are limited in scope, relevant only to a select few. That doesn't matter though. In three years time the landscape will be different. We will have conversations more relevant to our interests.
In summary it's a waste of time when people are part of a community, post something but never come back to see how the conversation has progressed. We don't need to do it instantly. With a blog post this conversation can afford to be discussed over a period of weeks and months, every few hours in some cases. We can go about our daily life.
So instead of the conversation splintering the way it has across things like Twitter - FriendFeed - Facebook people are tried of getting lost in the splintered threads and wanting to be able to talk about the ideas and its outgrowths in one place.
This is something I am so looking forward to but it requires that the originators of the conversation - regardless of where they started the conversation - maintain their contact with conversation and be willing to reach out to those wanting to be involved.
We may have been sidetracked by the shininess of new conversation tools but I hope that this is right and we are return full circle back to the beginning - back to where the conversation started in the first place.
What SU had was pages based on keyword tags. Each tag had a page that showed the most popular shared sites for that tag based on clicks, reviews, and readers voting them up. It also showed the users who shared the most valuable content on that subject.
IF you knew how to get to those pages (it wasn't that obvious) you could quickly and easily find the most knowledgeable users on that subject. Say you had questions about Ubuntu - you could go to the Ubuntu page and find the most valuable resources about it AND connect with someone who could answer specific questions.
THAT is what Social Networking is missing. Yes, there are search functions at Twitter and FriendFeed but that is not nearly as useful as using the power of computers to organize and present content in an easy to use way. The first Social Media site that finally gets that right will require far less time and give far more back!
When they do they will not only be an awesome resource for users - they will also provide what every small business needs and what will be their Golden Goose of monetization - a highly targeted niche audience. Ads there will convert and advertisers will line up to buy them. This is precisely how Google makes most of their money and how these sites should too!
I've posted about this in the past. You can see two posts in my blog or interact with me. Just search for monetization in the search box at the top of the right sidebar. I would love to provide input and beta testing for any Social Networking site heading in this direction. I have a clear idea what the ideal is because I have an extensive background in computers (since 1978), search, and ppc advertising (since 2003).
The first is - Social Media - and that at its roots is the movement to make the Web as a whole useful and available to everyone regardless of social or economic position. It is this Social Media that is the groundswell that could make changes within our society in ways that we can't even understand or foresee at this point.
The second is - social media - which is nothing more than the tools and services that make mass marketing more palatable because we are under the illusion that these services and marketers want to be able to talk with us when in reality all it is is just another way to pat us on the head making us believe that we are a part of the business.
I have begun to wonder if Social Media is really just nothing more that the glue and communication pathways that connect the personal community we all are creating around ourselves - our name - our brand. Through that glue or communication pathways we are able to create transient larger communities as they are needed and for as long as they are needed. In his book CauseWired Tom Watson uses the the term flash causes
I would suggest that possibly when we talk about Social Media this it the type of thing we are really looking at. Niche communities that spring up around a powerful voice - or idea - and this is transmitted through the Social Media glue or pathways and as it finds similar people or ideas the community grows bigger until the time comes where they splinter back off once again to their core community.
On the other hand all these social media services and tools might allow for us to utilize the Social Media pathways to communicate with each other but they are not what makes up the whole of Social Media - they are just the tools and the marketing engine.
And as Hutch mentions it isn't that easy for anyone who is not already famous to use Twitter to reach a massive audience. Much of the time it is more like Tweeting into a vacuum, rarely knowing how many we're reaching and of those how many care.
Webomatica is correct that often "we" are creating value that corporations later usurp. That is why I am always ready to move on when my favorite Social Networking site (and any other independent service I use) is bought out.
That is why I keep hoping that one Social Media site will finally stay independent, do it right, and give Google a run for their money. In the meantime we can do what we can. Personally, I use them to benefit anyone who chooses to listen.
Using Social Media provides these benefits:
1) Driving more traffic to my blog and the sites of others I share.
2) Exchanging strategies, knowledge, and resources with those who have exceptional talents in specific areas.
3) Finding the best blogs, joining their communities and recommending them to others.
4) Using search at Twitter and FriendFeed for research and to replace what I might have once used a search engine to find.
5) Twitter CAN be very effective at times. Remember the Mommy bloggers versus Motrin and the numerous times that Tweets have nearly instantly raised money for a good cause?
What is somewhat disppointing:
1) The number of answers (even though according to Twinfluence I'm at 99% and in the top 400 users at Twitter)
2) Obtaining any kind of response to anything I sincerely recommend
3) The number of bloggers who reciprocate by retweeting, sharing, or commenting - especially when it is obvious who invest much time and effort in repeatedly sharing THEIR work across Social Media sites.
It is not always obvious whether what we do is effective. Often responses are few and far between which is why I make it a point to encourage people and wish others would too. It doesn't take that much time to RT at Twitter, add a Like at FriendFeed or leave a comment in a blog post.
All of those things benefit the person who does them too. If you don't know how check out my latest post and another one you can find by searching on "pay it forward" using the search function at the top of the right sidebar in my blog (which EVERY blog should have).
I really wish the public would differentiate between sharing information about quality products and services we use, small businesses trying to reach us, and corporations advertising AT us when they don't care what we think and usually don't even pretend to respond.
Social Networks would benefit us more if we would actively use them to change our everyday actions. We could use them to learn how to grow gardens and find quality small, local and online businesses to support. If everyone bought from their neighbors and the best ecommerce stores online instead of corporations the world would quickly be a very different place.
My most cynical thought is the "benefits" are being touted by corporations as being good for the user, when really what they're up to is profiting off of our information and cheap labor. The hippie information wants to be free thing only goes as far as getting users on board en masse, then later we all get sold up the river to the highest bidder.
Personally all I use it for anymore is entertainment - a great way to waste time when I need a break from getting actual work done. I don't take social media seriously which means I enjoy it a lot more.
What *has* worked for me is leveraging social media to improve my knowledge and connections for a specific field. Professionally, I'm part of the enterprise 2.0 sector. I'm making a lot of connections there, and I've been pleasantly surprised how well tracking social media for e2.0 has helped me. The opinions, information and connections among different people have made me a lot smarter for my job. I've met some great people online in this way.
To paraphrase the Stones, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.
Our interactions with readers on the other hand is something we build up over time and as the conversation becomes more and more splintered it becomes harder for us to ride any momentum forward.
Your second part though shows what I have been trying to say about our own niche communities being held together by Social Media glue or communication pathways. Regardless of what the tools are or what the marketers are pushing your community of e2.0 would survive quite nicely without the social media hype and retweeting silliness. It would survive because you have the larger Social Media ethos that fluidly binds you together for as long as you need it to. Your Social Media involvement through your e2.0 niche doesn't have to deal with the irritations of the social media white noise and therefor is far more beneficial to those in those niche communities.
I certainly became hypersensitized to the RT after encountering Twitalizer and even got sucked in to that rat race a bit. When I ask myself "why, where's the benefit?" I can't find any concrete benefit to my offline life.
Social media in general could, in theory, broaden your network and help you to showcase your talents to other people who can appreciate them. But there are limits.
I have over 1,000 Twitter followers! I have 500+ connections on LinkedIn! Friends galore on Facebook. What's my Twitter Rank? What are my FFHolic stats?!?
Most social media seems designed to reinforce our basic need of self-worth. That somebody out there cares what we think. That someone is listening. For some it will be a way to connect with others which isn't a bad thing really. But I'm not sure how long this type of echo chamber and mirror-mirror on the wall mentality will last.
But there are aspects of Twitter (small but there) and FriendFeed which I believe serve a purpose beyond the normal social media platforms. They're about harnessing data and delivering information.
Twitter does a poor job of the latter and really is about promoting data, not harnessing data. To me, FriendFeed (and Google Reader for that matter) are simple data flows with various filtering techniques that allow me to shape the data into digestible chucks of information.
I get value back. I learn. I become smarter. Hopefully I pass some of it on as well.
Some of that is social in nature because it's part of the data flow. And the annotation of the data (via comments) is also 'social' in nature and, as such, can be mined separately.
Whether you call it Social Media then or not ... well, that's up for grabs.
but you are right as long as we are more concerned with numbers rather than value given and received much of this is pointless.
Being meta too long will drive you insane.