First there was twitter. Everyone seemed to have had a twitter account. So I created one too. Nothing happened for the longest time and I unknowingly followed a lot of people who kept dumping me with a lot of junk information. So I then went and "unfollowed" many of them. I then configured it on my mobile phone thinking OK at least this will make me tweet. I tweeted the first couple of days - i then felt stupid tweeting because i wondered, do the people that are following me really care about what I tweet. What if I am just creating a whole lot of junk information out there with my tweets. So I stopped tweeting when I realised I gave some stupid advise on tweeting that goes like "just tweet what ever is in your head. I'm sure there are enough people that will put up with your nonsense, like me". This is not really true is what i now realised. Tweet only if you have quality information to share which your followers care about.
Then came facebook and orkut - I have accounts with all the three but that's about it. Every once in a while someone friends me which makes me login to accept their invitation for the fear of insulting them if I do not accept their "friendship" and then I friend some more people just for the fun of it.
I was all excited when Google came out with Google Wave. They gave me an account with some invitations and I so excitedly handed them out to everyone hoping that they will "wave" with me, but that was not to be. Very few waved with me because we did not know what to "wave" about. Maybe I'm still not yet far enough into the future to understand how to "wave".
Anyway then came "buzz". I again said OK let me "buzz". But then again I had a whole lot of friends that I thought I could "buzz" with, but again I was wrong - my Google "buzz" is as quiet as quiet can be.
So all this got me thinking. Is real time information not my thing? With so much information readily available all over the place are we complicating our lives with all of this. Well I think I am. The catch is that if you don't use any of these tools you are accused of not changing with the times. You are accused of being stuck in the past. Ive been writing this blog since July 2005 and I still find it the best way to express my thoughts. My thoughts on this blog are written, reviewed, changed, reviewed again and then published. Thoughts and ideas should not be like fast food and I think all of the "tweeting, buzzing, waving, wall(ing), ..." is like fast food - you get a few tit bits of value and the rest is junk !
You are not a machine
This is an interesting illustration that resonated with a discussion I was having recently about doing ones best. It perfectly encapsulates ...
5 comments:
Well, I think being active on Buzz AND Facebook AND Twitter AND LinkedIn is overkill.
But being active on one should be fun. I can't get enough of Twitter.
I agree with you Ashwin. Using just one of them may be the best option going forward.
But there are different friends using different tools and networks. What do you do then ? Will we then come up with a unified social platform that unites all these different media into one ?
Hmmmm i wonder if there is a product like that - if you update one place all your different social networks are updated and you can manage all your friends from one single place.
Well if there is no product like that this might be a good idea for a product as managing your social interface on the web has become a pain point for a lot of people.
FriendFeed?
Friendfeed from what I understand is just another social networking site and you can add friends from all your other social networking sites. Well I may be wrong.
What I am getting at is something like Digsby or Trillian where I can see all my friends from all my instant messenger networks in one place without having to login to multiple networks.
Sudeeeeep, I just started following you on Twitter and am expecting high-quality tweets from you, ok?
:D
I use Twitter mainly to get and circulate work-related information and Facebook for keeping in touch with friends. I realized that I am not the let-the-whole-world-know-what-I-am-doing kind of person (hence, not that many status updates). Instead I use it to send messages, catch up with friends individually or in groups.
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