What I’ve noticed:

Things got cliquey. Unpopular opinions were quickly and combatively damned.  There’s nothing wrong with having a different opinion, even if it’s wrong.  But tolerance for diverse viewpoints is no longer a strong point for Friendfeed, as it was at its peak.

Those who agree with me will admit they’ve held back opinions and participation because of this.  I believe this is a big contributor to the decrease of interaction in Friendfeed.  Where have the political discussions gone?  What about the important conversations about race, world issues, etc.  And I mean real discussions, not just a thread full of affirmations.  This has been a real loss for Friendfeed as it has affected the number of interactions on all threads.  And what we’re left with is what Scoble is troubled by, which, more or less, I agree with.

Now, it’s not all bad.  I appreciate all the random stuff that pops up on Friendfeed.  I just wish there was more balance.  It’s easy for anyone to speak up when they know most of the people around support their view.  However, if we don’t encourage diversity of opinions, all we encourage is the echo chamber effect.

This is not to say that I’m done with Friendfeed, because I still find it very useful and rewarding.  I just don’t use it as often or for the same purposes.  Do I think Friendfeed is doomed?  No, definitely not.  However, I think there needs to be a change in mentality of the community.

What’s been your experience with Friendfeed lately?

Related posts

• I Chose The Echo Chamber
• Social Media Narcissism
• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
• How to Get out of Your Blogging Hiatus, Funk, Sabbatical, or Whatever You Decided to Call It
• FriendFeed Participation Levels

Related posts

• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
• Social Media Narcissism
• On Social Media, Are You a Type X or Type Y Thinker?
• Mixx and Digg: Community Makes the Difference

Here are some stats that you may or may not find interesting:

Traffic

Total Pageviews: 19,661
United States: 61.91%
Canada: 10.85%
United Kingdom: 7.00%
Australia: 2.09%
India: 1.45%
Germany: 1.39%
Philippines: 0.77%
Netherlands: 0.75%
Turkey: 0.72%
France: 0.67%

Sources
google / organic: 26.61%
friendfeed.com: 18.52%
stumbleupon.com: 9.01%
twitter.com: 5.28%

Most Popular Posts

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FriendFeed Participation Levels

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My Rant on Loren Feldman

Posts

57 posts

579 blog comments

18 categories

~150 Feedburner subscribers

42 MyBlogLog members

Thanks once again for the great interactions, I hope we’ll have many more in the upcoming year

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I’ve found there are [VERY] generally, two schools of thought on Social Media and it’s future.   There are the skeptics who I call Type X thinkers, and the believers who I call Type Y thinkers.

Type X  (Skeptics or Pessimists):

This school of thought sees Social Media as a big, never-ending popularity contest rife with narcissism: “Look at me, I’ve got 5,000 followers, I’m awesome!”

Skeptics also adopt the idea that Social Media has no real ROI and if it does, there’s no standard way of quantifying it. Some base it on page stats, while others base it on influence via network size but most find it hard to tie it back to $$$, market share, etc.

Even though the most hardcore of skeptics cannot deny the existence of the growing phenomenon that is Social Media, most are cautious about taking it too seriously.

Type Y (Believers or Kool-aid drinkers):

Type Y thinkers see Social Media as the incumbent future of interaction on the web. They are avid tutors for those still stuck in Web 1.0 and yearn for the mainstream adoption of Social Media. Contrary to the skeptics, they believe that Social Media ROI can be measured effectively; while being linked to revenue, market share, and other corporate benchmarks.

In addition, the Believers foresee more to Social Media than just revenue. They see an opportunity for real world social change through activism, community building, and awareness.

I’m not trying to label you

I’m sure no one fits perfectly into either description; I consider myself a Type Y thinker, I’d really love to see Steven Hodson’s impossible dream of social technology come to life. On the other hand, I’m still a little skeptical about Social Media ROI.

How do you see Social Media?

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Go back and read some of your old posts

Sometimes you’d be surprised at the discussions your blog has generated or even how one of your ideas has spread across the blogosphere.  This is a good exercise to rebuild any lost self-confidence so you can get right back on that horse.

Start reading your RSS feeds again

Chances are you’ve not only stopped blogging, but you’ve stopped reading RSS feeds too.  Catching up with your blogging acquaintances is a great way to get inspired and catch up with the latest ideas.

Join discussions

…on blog posts, Friendfeed, SocialMedian, etc.  Get engaged again and throw your opinions out there on Twitter.  See what folks are saying about your favourite topics on social news sites and rant chat away!

Summarize your time off

You probably reorganized some life priorities while you were away.  How did you spend your time usually slotted for blogging?  Let folks know how your real life is going.

Respond to a hot topic

…with a fresh perspective!  Try not to re-enter the echo chamber.

Setup drafts

Have an idea for a post? Create a draft and add thoughts little by little as they enter your head. As time goes by, string them together and mold them into a bigger thought that flows well.

Set realistic goals for blogging in the future

How often do you really need to blog? What are you trying to accomplish with your blog?  Louis Gray reminds me that you don’t really have to blog everyday unless you’re being paid to do so.

So here I am, trying to follow my own advice.  I’ve taken these steps in hopes of not only blogging on a more regular basis, but having more realistic expectations.  I’ve gone back and read some of my old posts and I still can’t figure out why people are so interested in what I have to say, but I am grateful for it.

Have you recently overcome a blogging hiatus, funk, sabbatical, or whatever?

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I had TechCrunch and Scobleizer on the list but their recent redesigns look great!

Hopefully, without sounding like another design snob, I’d like to list some popular blogs that I hope get a redesign in 2009.

In no specific order:

1) Lifehacker

Really its not just Lifehacker but all the Gawker Media blogs.

2) LouisGray.com

Louis Gray has a great blog with some of the most interesting thoughts and topics out there, and a fresh design would be a great complement.

3) Techipedia

So much potential here, would love to see a design that incorporates the logo well.

4) Read Write Web

Read Write Web is one of my favourite blogs and the layout and typography isn’t really that horrible.  It’s mostly the header and logo that bug me.

5) ProBlogger

I used to like ProBlogger’s design — not sure what happened.  Maybe it was the increase in ads or maybe I got tired of reading Helvetica in such small font sizes (one of my web pet peeves).

6) The Last Podcast

Frederic runs a great blog here as well, but this template needs to go.

7) ChrisBrogan.com

I don’t actually have any real beef with his current design, personally I just loved the previous one so much more.  Bring it back Chris!

8) Performancing

Very helpful blog but I’m not a fan of fluid width layouts plus it really could use a refresh.  Not friendly with 17” monitors either.

9) Web Strategy by Jeremiah

Earlier this year, Jeremiah asked what he could do to improve the way his blog looks.   I suggested he change the background to white instead of light gray.  But now, I’m asking for more

10) Micro Persuasion

Not sure how flexible Typepad is, but I’d love to see what could be done here.

Now, before I get anyone lashing back at me, please consider that my intentions are not to be critical of these blogs as a whole.  I just think the visual aspects warrant some improvement.

Do you agree or disagree?  What sites would you add to this list?

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In accordance with Blog Day 2008, here are 5 blogs I’m reading that I recommend you read as well:

One Little Cog
Blog of Ehren Cheung, web marketing & data coordinator at the Dundurn Group.

Shannon Whitley
Blog of developer/systems admin, Shannon Whitley.

Pulse and Signal
Commentary on the impact and potential usefulness, of technology (social media, consumer/emerging web tech) on health communication and social marketing.

Rick Mahn
Exploration of social media & web 2.0’s strengths and failings.

Jeffrey Simms Photography
Blog of photographer, Jeffrey Simms.

And for good measure, be sure to subscribe to one more…mine

introspective snapshots

Related posts

• 20 Obscure People You Can Follow on Twitter and FriendFeed and Not Get Bored
• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
• Sorry FriendFeed, But I Agree With Robert Scoble
• Social Media Narcissism
• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08

When going through the process of adding / friending / following in social media, we often look for a common characteristic in our ‘friends’.  These characteristics can be anything, from the love of tech, design, political affiliation or religion or any other type of culture.  Why do we do this?  It’s an attempt in the perpetual battle of finding the the signal amongst the noise, but on that journey, are we falling prey to too much narcissism?

Here’s my concern:

If we only encourage interactions with people who are like ourselves by religion, politics, language, industry, etc., and shy away from everything else, will that not enclose us in a bubble?

Some Effects of the Bubble

One effect is that we end up with groupthink and an increasingly larger echo chamber.  A false reality is created by the purposeless regurgitation of ideas, everyone sheepishly agreeing with everyone else, and the ensuing lack of perspective due to isolation from the rest of the space.  Being open-minded isn’t enough.  What good is it being open-minded if there aren’t encounters with other perspectives?

Another effect is a related to the echo chamber: just pure boredom. Hearing about the same old topics over and over again can result in social media fatigue and blogger burnout.  Personally, I’d rather comment on someone else’s post rather than perpetuating a worn-out topic.  Sometimes, a comment can be just as meaningful as a post. (Heck, Disqus even thinks comments are blog posts)

Other effects include the suppression of different points of view which pushes folks to hold back on their level of engagement; and the isolation of those who dare to share all of the topics they like.

My Advice

• Diversify your friend subscriptions
• Encourage constructive discussion
• Backup your opinions with facts
• Empathize so you can be open-minded to see other viewpoints — you will learn more and appreciate others, and have others appreciate you for understanding them
• Being open-minded also involves welcoming a variety of topics from unexpected sources
• Be patient, you may have to endure some noise to gain more signal

In the end I think this will help you have more meaningful interactions, bring an added excitement to learning, and achieve greater satisfaction in your social media journey.

Is following a diverse group of people important to you?

Related posts

• I Chose The Echo Chamber
• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
• FriendFeed Participation Levels
• FriendFeed Is The Signal
• Frienderati: Making it Easy to Find Popular Inactives

Check out Rahsheen’s blog.

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You can see it in action at the bottom of all my posts, courtesy of the ShareThis WordPress plugin (there’s also a JavaScript version available).  A tip for Wordpress K2 users, make sure to turn off Advanced Navigation when using ShareThis.

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Does Your Social Network Isolate You?

Like Steven, I did wonder if FriendFeed isolates us, in a way.  But then I realized that I chose to isolate myself — in 2 ways:

1. I chose to eliminate noise in search of the much-desired signal.
2. I chose to focus my interactions on a more personal avenue rather than just reading anything and everything (in other words, be more social!).

By doing this, I narrowed my scope of interactions, purposefully, for fear of information overload.  I just wanted to be able to cut to the good stuff.  After this refinement, should I expect to find that only one or two people who think they have stuff figured out?

Is There A Way Out?

There are many opinions on this; Colin Walker makes a couple good points:

Social media must not become a self congratulatory love-in unless there is actually something worth celebrating.

..it [social media] becomes boring when “the same topic goes round in circles and, just when you think it’s done with, someone else throws in a ‘me too’ post and rakes over it all again but with no insight or added value.”

I agree with Colin, but who is to judge what is worth celebrating and what isn’t; what is value and what isn’t?  It is really up to the individual or is there something the community can do? 

I believe there is. We can stop being so quick to belittle those who have an opinion.  We should not be afraid to disagree, but how are we going about it? I think this negative type of chastising behaviour encourages a kind of ‘groupthink’ that only amplifies the effects of the echo chamber. 

Believe me, I’m not saying we should treat everyone with kid gloves, but we’re all human beings with sensitivities, unique experiences and walks of life — we should appreciate that and use it to the community’s advantage.

I think we can encourage the expression of diverse opinions. If we choose not to, our complaints about the echo chamber are in vain.

Why is the echo chamber a problem for you?  What can you/we do to correct it?

Related posts

• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• The Case For Distributed Conversations
• Social Media Narcissism
• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
• How to Get out of Your Blogging Hiatus, Funk, Sabbatical, or Whatever You Decided to Call It

Twitter

http://twitter.com/Alexa
http://twitter.com/bigeasy
http://twitter.com/dreadlocks
http://twitter.com/ehrenc
http://twitter.com/KeithBurtis
http://twitter.com/mindofandre
http://twitter.com/swhitley
http://twitter.com/theelusivefish
http://twitter.com/tunie
http://twitter.com/zoeDisco

Honourable mention: http://twitter.com/flyingspatula

FriendFeed

http://friendfeed.com/acitrano
http://friendfeed.com/alejandroz
http://friendfeed.com/bbluesman
http://friendfeed.com/bwana
http://friendfeed.com/furry
http://friendfeed.com/itafroma
http://friendfeed.com/mitchelltsai
http://friendfeed.com/monasfeed
http://friendfeed.com/pattonroberta
http://friendfeed.com/ultrasur1

Honourable mentions: http://friendfeed.com/akiva, http://friendfeed.com/tad, http://friendfeed.com/susanbeebe.

I could go on and on with this list because there are many others that belong here, but you’re either too well known or just not obscure enough .

Feel free to create your list of recommendations and pass them on.  And if you’re looking for more obscure and interesting folks to follow, you can always add me on Twitter and FriendFeed.

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• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
• Twit-Out: 24-Hour Twitter Boycott
• Sorry FriendFeed, But I Agree With Robert Scoble
• My Twitter Friends Mosaic

One of the really great aspects of FriendFeed is being able to have discussions with a wide variety of people.  People who are actively expressing their ideas and revealing their thoughts — producing a mind provoking array of conversations and debates.  My biggest issue with the list is that it elevates many accounts who provide nothing but shared content.  In my eyes, there’s no difference between those FriendFeed accounts and their MyBlogLog lifestream.

My comments on Chris Brogan’s post on Frienderati sums up my opinion:

I think it’s a bad way to help new folks find friends because probably half the people on that list don’t participate FriendFeed at all or have minimal usage — including yourself. They have FriendFeed setup to pull in their activities from others sites, but there’s little to no participation from many of them (not all).

How many times do we have to tell folks to participate in communities if you want to get value? The value isn’t in the content they are sharing, it’s found by interacting with the community and sharing opinions and starting discussions.

… I’m not saying that you HAVE to comment and like stuff in FriendFeed — you can just read or use it anyway you want to. But I wouldn’t recommend that new readers follow someone who only pulls in shared content.

Chances are there are others around who are having discussions around that same content — which is where I believe the value is.

So am I overreacting?  Let’s look at a some of the Frienderati’s activity in the past week and you decide; staring from the top (and skipping a lot of names — this is by no means a perfectly representative sample).  Keep in mind, the some entries pulled in automatically count as a comment, such as Disqus, StumbleUpon notes, Del.icio.us notes, etc.:

• Alex De Carvalho: 2 comments, 2 likes
• Adam Ostrow: 1 comment, 1 like
• Aliza Sherman: No activity
• Amber Mac: No activity
• Andrew Chen: 1 comment, 0 likes
• Burt Lum: No activity
• David Sifry: 1 comment, 0 likes
• Emily Chang No activity
• Fred Wilson: 92 comments, 0 likes (Almost all are Disqus entries or Del.icio.us. notes)
• Gabe Rivera: 6 comments, 0 likes
• Guy Kawasaki: No activity

It seems fitting to stop at Guy.

Nothing personal against any of these people — I’m just using their examples to make a point.  Some of them may very well use FriendFeed everyday to just read and share content. However, I wouldn’t recommend users to follow those accounts as they would get bored pretty quickly.

I think new FriendFeed users should read Robert Scoble’s post on FriendFeed participation and how to find the value in FriendFeed.  While you’re at it, read my posts on the different types of FriendFeed users as well as interesting ways they can use FriendFeed.

What’s the value in FriendFeed for you?  Is it just pulling in other users’ blog posts and other shares? Isn’t the interaction and the conversation more valuable?

Related posts

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• I Chose The Echo Chamber
• FriendFeed Participation Levels
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1. Create a private online digital archive with Rooms

Mike Fruchter’s post on this describes how he uses FriendFeed Rooms to archive photos, messages, and other information about his then newborn daughter.

Inspired from Mike’s example, I use a private FriendFeed Room to store info on new post ideas and track discussions on my blog posts and other topics.

2. Have your own personal homepage

Mitchell Tsai, one of FriendFeed’s Conversationalists, has started a homepage for himself that links to many other conversations he’s been having on FriendFeed.  It’s an astounding project as it links to other collections of discussions, with some linking back to the homepage.

3. Live blogging

As far as I know, the first use of FriendFeed for live blogging was done by yours truly (before Rooms were introduced) while on a Forrester Web 2.0 Webinar.  The more familiar instance was MG Siegler’s VentureBeat WWDC Livestream.  (Between me and you, MG’s was much more interesting ).  I also came across Cameron Neylon’s liveblogging of the workshop Data Sharing in the Biosciences.

4. Research

FriendFeed is a valuable source of data and behaviours, just waiting to be transformed into information.  There are two main ways to get the data you’re looking for: by asking for it and by searching for it.  For a tutorial on FriendFeed searching, I’m taking the easy way out and linking you to Louis Gray’s FriendFeed Advanced Search tutorial; he’ll tell you all you need to know.

Here are examples of how I’ve done research by asking questions on FriendFeed:

• “To do lists / reminders: What do you use?”
• “How much do you consider SEO when writing a blog post?”
• “Where do you store all your great blog post ideas?”

5. Uber-sharing

FriendFeed Rooms are not just being used to reduce noise; they’re being used to share noise as well .  Mike Fructer’s Share your Google Reader! room and Ontario Emperor’s lastfmfeeds room are great examples of this.  They collect the Google Reader shares and the Last.fm recently played tracks of other FriendFeed members for all to enjoy.

It’s great seeing such innovative uses of a great service that really show how creative the users are and how flexible FriendFeed is.

What are some other unique uses you’ve seen?

Related posts

• I Chose The Echo Chamber
• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• The Case For Distributed Conversations
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• FriendFeed Participation Levels

The Conversationalist

This type of participant is the social butterfly of FriendFeed.  As I attempt to show in the graph to the right, they comment on a wide variety of posts involving a wide variety of topics.  You’ll probably see them often on your FriendFeed page, continually bringing a refreshing assortment of new content from others.

Examples: Polly Roberts, Mitchell Tsai

The Marketer

This type of user is a combination of both Conversationalist and Researcher.  They want to let you know they are here by being active participants in many conversations; however, a notable percentage of their activity is on their own content.  They tend to have a smaller range of participation than Conversationalists but enjoy engaging with other familiar users. 

Examples: Loic Le Meur, Leo Laporte 

The Researcher

Highly inquisitive, this user’s main purpose is to collect information.  They pose questions and share thoughtful information to get feedback from the community. Most of their comments are on their own posts, unlike the Marketer or the Conversationalist, but they often stimulate thought and open up avenues for conversation.

Examples: Steve Rubel, Jeremiah Owyang

This isn’t to knock any of the example users I’ve listed.  Every user has their own purpose, preferences, and expectations when it comes to using services and I don’t like when the community starts to dictate etiquette. Why do I think it’s important? By highlighting how and why difference folks use social media, we can come to appreciate our differences instead of developing binding etiquette rules and chastising others for going against the grain. This kind of analysis can also be used with almost any other social service with commenting, like Twitter.

Obviously, it’s hard to group everyone into only 3 cookie cutter categories, but you can probably see how you tend to participate.  I think I’m somewhere in between a Marketer and a Researcher.  How about you?

Related posts

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• I Chose The Echo Chamber
• FriendFeed Is The Signal
• Frienderati: Making it Easy to Find Popular Inactives
• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?

I think it’s possible for the services to come together and develop a standard for commenting systems (as suggested by Dave Stanley of Shyftr).  This standard would provide a framework for updating comments across the blog, commenting systems, and third-party services (like FriendFeed or Shyftr).

Of course this also requires input and cooperation from these third-party services for this to really work.   The ultimate goal: distributed conversations with aggregated discussions.

What future implications do you think this will have on how you blog and participate in discussions?

Related posts

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Ay shawwwty, wha’yo flava iis?

Pixel Pimping

ColorZilla
This is a great addon that lets you get the colour reading of anywhere in the browser.  It also has a colour picker with several palettes built-in.

Firebug
Edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, live.

FireFTP
An FTP program built into Firefox.
My favourite feature: Keep directories in sync while navigating.

IE Tab
Open Internet Explorer-rendered web pages in Firefox and easily switch back and forth between IE/FF.

Measure It
I use it to measure the pixels of anything and everything inside the browser window.

Web Developer Toolbar
Several tools including working with CSS, forms, cookies, images, and more.
My favourite feature: Resize window (to 1024×768, 800×600, etc.)

FireShot
Enables you to take full page screenshots of web pages with additional functionality like editing and annotating.
My favourite feature: Full page screenshots with a customizable delay for Flash movies.

Social Media Skanking

Better Gmail 2
Includes a really nice skin for Gmail with additional options.  A compilation of the best Gmail Greasemonkey scripts.
My favourite feature: Real file icons for attachments (instead of the paperclip)

Del.icio.us Bookmarks
Allows you to open your Del.icio.us bookmarks in your sidebar or in the browser window and tag/save websites.

Download Statusbar
Use your status bar to see the progress of your downloads instead of that annoying popup window.

DragDropUpload
Instead of having to browse for files when uploading or attaching to an email, you can simple drag the file to the input area of the form.  The addon will automatically insert the path.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
This extension saves your bookmarks to a server, where you can access it from any computer that has Foxmarks installed.  Bookmarks are updated so you can take them with you anywhere you go.

Greasemonkey
This addon enables you to install small bits of JavaScript (Greasemonkey scripts) to manipulate and customize page displays in Firefox.
My favourite Greasemonkey script: Pagerization.

PicLens
Hands down the coolest addon ever.  Great for viewing images, photos and video from Flickr, Google Image Search, YouTube, and more.  Just view the demo and you’ll see.

PDF Download
Don’t you hate when links to PDF open in your browser?  Or the take forever to open and freeze your system?  PDF Download lets you choose how to open/PDFs and even gives you the option of converting it to HTML.

Shareaholic
The best addon for sharing content on the web, period.

StumbleUpon
Great addon for random stumbling, sending sites to your friends and stumbling via interests or through various websites.

TwitterBar
Great addon for twittering on the down-low.  Just type your tweet in the location bar and send away. 
My favourite feature: TwitterBar lets me know how many available characters I have left in my tweet.

What addons would you recommend?

Related posts

• How I Fit 54 Shortcuts In My Firefox Toolbar
• 10 Top Tech and Social Media Blogs I’d Like to See Redesigned in 2009
• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
• To Comment or Not to Comment

Author Preference

Many bloggers have voiced their concerns over distributed conversations.  Out of respect to them, I try to comment on the original post.  However, there’s no guarantee I’ll do this 100% of the time; there are still other factors I consider (keep reading).

Author is/isn’t on FriendFeed

I’m much more likely to comment on FriendFeed if I know the author is an active FriendFeeder.

However, I will admit that I sometimes comment only on FriendFeed because I’m more interested what readers have to say than the author’s response.  This is usually a situation where I’m looking for feedback from others to get their viewpoint, rather than the author just defending their position.

FriendFeed Related

Blog posts about FriendFeed have a very good probability of receiving my comments via FriendFeed.  This way other FriendFeeders are more likely to read and respond.

Audience Exposure

At times, I’ll want to share a blog post with the FriendFeed community using the FriendFeed bookmarklet, subsequently leaving my comment there.

Comment Limit

Obviously if I’ve got more to say than FriendFeed allows, I’ll go and comment on the blog post.  But I usually just write out a new post if it gets too long.

The Blog’s Commenting System

Disqus and Intense Debate are my favourite commenting systems and make it much easier for me to leave blog comments.  I’m definitely turned off by commenting systems that make me have to enter all my details every time I want to comment. 

In addition, Disqus and Intense Debate both integrate with FriendFeed, allowing my comments to be commented on some more.

Summary

I definitely comment more on FriendFeed than anywhere else; but it’s not a rule.  I consider several factors when commenting on a post which include the interests of the author, myself, and my community.

What helps you decide where to leave a comment?

Related posts

• The Case For Distributed Conversations
• Comment Portability: The Commenting Standard of the Future
• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
• I Chose The Echo Chamber

Related posts

• A Poem on Social Media
• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
• Video: Train in Japan
• To Comment or Not to Comment

Feedback Quality

By keeping comments distributed, or decentralized, more than one discussion is able to take place.  New ideas are likely to be heard since readers often start with a blank slate and are more likely to participate.  Discussions also take different directions depending on where the conversation starts.  In contrast with centralization, a post usually consists of a stream of comments which may or may not be directed to one another — many just congratulating the author on writing a great post.  In other words, many blog comments end up being just that, comments. 

In FriendFeed, real discussions have been taking place.  I’m not saying this can’t happen on the blog post; it can, but it happens on FriendFeed more often and with ease.  However, thanks to services like Disqus and Intense Debate, commenting on blog posts has never been easier, and many readers love it.

Feedback Quantity

Now think about the reach of FriendFeed, and how one person’s ‘like’ or comment pulls it into their friends’ stream and if those friends ‘like’ it, etc. and so on.  The potential audience is enormous.  I have 217 people subscribed to me in FriendFeed, and that’s probably nowhere near the top, think of the implications of that.  FriendFeed is becoming an increasingly larger portion of traffic to many blogs.

Not to mention the other implications of FriendFeed, and other services like it, that may follow.

Decentralized Comments, Aggregated Discussions

I believe the solution is aggregated discussions, not centralized comments. If you look below, you’ll see the FriendFeed Comments plugin installed.  It allows me to pull in comments made in FriendFeed onto my posts.   Readers can also directly comment and/or ‘like’ the post from my blog straight into FriendFeed.

There Is No Perfect Solution, Yet

Of course, there is still much integration and aggregation to do.  The FriendFeed Comments plugin only pulls comments from the Blog entry and not Google Reader shares, Del.icio.us links, or the Disqus comments.

What does that mean for the blogger? In the words of Hutch Carpenter, "If you love your blog, set it free."  Engage your readers.  Try to keep up with the discussions and participate — show them your appreciation.  To help, use YackTrack; it allows you to see comments on your post across a variety of services including Digg, Disqus, FriendFeed, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and more. It has been recently updated with RSS feeds and APIs.

While I disagree with Allen that FriendFeeders should be bouncing around from FriendFeed to source and back, I do agree that more integration is needed.  I’d love for FriendFeed comments on a Flickr photo to go back to Flickr, and for the same to happen with blogs and other services.  But as of now that functionality doesn’t exist and until it does, I think you’ll find very few users willing to do it Allen’s way.

What’s your idea of the perfect solution? 

How likely are you to go back and comment on both the original source and on FriendFeed?

Related posts

• Comment Portability: The Commenting Standard of the Future
• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• To Comment or Not to Comment
• I Chose The Echo Chamber
• The Conversation is Evolving

The Change in Community Interaction

FriendFeed is changing the way bloggers and readers of blogs interact with each other.  This phenomenon, recently named Blogging 2.0, is becoming more and more widely accepted; however, there are some who choose to remain in Blogging 1.0. Just last night there was a discussion on where the conversations should take place and whether or not the blogger should have control over them, as summarized by Colin Walker.  Distributed conversations are here to stay and FriendFeed is the big culprit.  All content aggregated into FriendFeed can be "liked" or commented on by users with a simple click, compared to the regular blog post system of commenting where a user must Enter Name, Enter Email, and Enter Website to leave a comment.  Users have to then return to the post to see other comments and possibly repeat the process again.

This is not only true for blogs, FriendFeed also affects interactions with other media such as photos and video, albeit less dramatically. The sharing of images and videos are all on the rise due to the increased “favouriting” of Flickr photos and YouTube videos and use of the FriendFeed bookmarklet. While the “favourite” function has pre-existed in Flickr and YouTube, FriendFeed spreads the reach of this content on a much higher level.

The "Global Village"

FriendFeed nurtures what McLuhan called the "global village", or what Robert Scoble calls, "The Worldwide Talk Show".  It’s where everyone from everywhere can participate in the conversation and make it visible to everyone else.  FriendFeed allows your commented-on content to be shown to others in your network, whose commented and liked stories are made visible to others in their network…etc.  FriendFeed has allowed me to be influenced by a wide variety of people, and vice versa, in a way that not even Twitter has allowed.

The Bottom Line

Eventually, I believe the business models around Blogging 2.0 will have to change.  I posed this question on Duncan Riley’s post Blogging 2.0 and Professional Blogging:

Duncan has addressed this in a recent post about Blogging 2.0 and Advertising.  He states that for the most part the Blogging 1.0 ad models are still around; however, he expects more Blogging 2.0 solutions to emerge this year.

Lindsay Donaghe has a great post about the future of FriendFeed as an intelligent agent and recommendation engine and suggests it could work with a Squidoo-like business model behind it.

What do you think?  What other potential effects will FriendFeed have? What advertising models can work in this new landscape?

Related posts

• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
• I Chose The Echo Chamber
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Community Branding

It’s hard to compare Digg to Mixx when the communities are so different. Well, at least Digg has an easily identifiable community. The front page of Digg, at most points in time, are reflective of the interests of the community.  Which can usually involve stories about Apple (or anything anti-Microsoft), liberal politics, and various tech news.

With Mixx, it’s not so clear cut.  The issue is, most people don’t know what stories to submit to Mixx or even whether or not to join because they’re confused as to what Mixx is about (at first).  The community’s values aren’t evident from the front page because, well there is no standard front page, each user can customize it for themselves.  I do think this is a great feature especially since Mixx is trying to target a broad market (made up of multiple niches or "micro-communities") rather than a single, focused market.  The downside of course is that each of these micro-communities take time to build. 

Mixx will not be the next Digg.  If they compete for the same community; Mixx will lose.     The Digg community is well established, and I would think them to be very stubborn to move to another service (of course, besides those that are already disgruntled with Digg).

Greatness Looms

This is not to say Mixx will never be very successful; they’ll get there.  It will just take time for each of their "micro-communities" to develop and grow.  Mixx has the potential, in my opinion, to be just as successful as Digg, if not more.  Can you imagine each of Mixx’s micro-communities (Sports, Health, Local, etc.) having even 5% of a Digg-sized audience?  Once the crowds come and activity jumps, Mixx will definitely be a serious Digg competitor.  So all it takes is sheer numbers?  No, not at all.  I believe Mixx still needs to find a way to be attractive to each micro-community and not just a general audience.

What are your thoughts on growing the communities on Mixx? 

Do you think Mixx stands a chance against Digg?

Related posts

• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
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I learned the how powerful social media is; how 4 people can start an idea and have hundreds of folk propagate and discuss it.

I learned that I still have a backbone.  I’m still willing to stand up for something I believe in, despite name-calling and ridicule .

I learned that it’s human nature to assume first and get details later, if at all — hence the misconceptions of what Twit-Out actually was.

I learned that folks whine and complain against those who they accuse of whining and complaining and defend their need to whine and complain.

My greatest lesson learned is that I don’t need Twitter.  I have a million different ways to spend my time and 999,000 of them can be off the computer, involving a loving wife and other real people.

Overall, this was great and don’t regret a thing!  That being said, I’m happy to put Twit-Out behind me and look forward to seeing how Twitter works out (or not) in the future. 

Results

Dare I say Twit-Out was a success?  It was never about how many people actually participated. Twit-Out has produced the exchange of many ideas and alternative thoughts to the Twitter situation including Twitter Love Day and the Twitter Pizza Fund, which have each spurned additional discussions. 

Here are some of the FriendFeed discussions that came out of Twit-Out.

If you’re wondering about the reach of Twit-Out or want to see more discussions, check out the following searches:

Summize

Google

FriendFeed

Feel free to post your comments on Twit-Out (I missed all your tweets)

Related posts

• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
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Since Twit-Out was announced there has been a lot of feedback via FriendFeed, Twitter, and several other places. The reaction has been mixed, but a lot of people don’t seem to get it.

They don’t seem to get that things don’t work the way the used to. One of the big implications of Web 2.0 is that the control of the conversation has shifted to the community, not the enterprise behind it. So when I say that I’m going to take my conversation somewhere else for a day (see my reasons here), why is it that I’m a moron for doing so?

Jennifer Leggio argues that "disbanding the community" isn’t going to work. Disbanding may be a over-the-top term to use; but either way I think she and others are missing the point. No one is thinking that this is going to hurt Twitter in anyway and no one wants to hurt Twitter. I don’t expect everyone or even a significant amount of Twitter folk to join in, only the heavy users are the ones who are really perturbed enough to join in on Twit-Out. One of the things I want more than anything is for Twitter to realize that the technical problems may soon be dwarfed by the social problems. It’s in my own best interest that wherever I invest my conversation and build community should to allow me to get value from it on a reliable basis.

Now, based on how much you use Twitter, would you say it’s reliable? Some of us use Gmail A LOT. If Gmail were to go down as much as Twitter did, would your reaction be the same? Of course, Gmail has support and a place to go when things are awry, but it’s free, which means we shouldn’t do anything about it right? What would you do without Gmail, go back to Outlook, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail?

Our reliance on things like Twitter and Gmail for our community and email, respectively, has forced us to invest one of our most precious commodities: trust. Every time Twitter goes down, that trust gets a little smaller — and Twit-Out is how I’m going to demonstrate that to Twitter. It’s not about lashing back at them or throwing a tantrum; it’s about telling them before it’s too late that the outages are hurting the community more than they may realize.

So rather just whining and complaining I’ve joined a movement to try and accomplish something. That’s how I am. You don’t have to join me, like I said, I don’t expect a lot of people to do so. But you should know that my part of the conversation belongs to me. Those who complain about where I should comment/converse are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Related posts

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• YackTrack: A Tool To Quiet Bloggers’ Whining About Distributed Comments?
• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists
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• Twit-Out: 24-Hour Twitter Boycott

Discussions have continued to flare up on FriendFeed.

I’ll be joining the Twit-Out on May 21 even though some people do think it’s nonsense.  The main argument seems to be: "Why boycott a free service?" I’ll use an answer I’ve already used on FriendFeed:

“The ‘I don’t pay for it’ argument doesn’t really fly with me. I’ll complain if the bus driver doesn’t turn on the heat in the bus during winter. I’ll complain about the only weather radio station or the only TV news station that goes offline too often. Just because I don’t pay for it, doesn’t mean I have to put up with crappy service.”

What do I hope to achieve by participating?

1. Just being able to do something and let Twitter know that I care. 

Yup, I care enough that I’ll join an organized boycott to let them know how much Twitter means to me, I’m hooked, as are many others. However, it’s also to let Twitter know that if they keep doing me wrong, I don’t have to stick around. We all know the impending monetization is coming; if you plan on cashing in on us when the time comes, do us right from now and don’t wait until it’s too late.

2. To big up FriendFeed

So guess where I go when Twitter goes down? Yup, FriendFeed.  Why? Great conversations and awesome new content.  I think a lot of people dissed FriendFeed early on when there wasn’t quite the user base there is now; so I’m hoping folks will check it out again and see how it is now.  Comments and ‘likes’ are jumping, ideas are being exchanged and conversations have taken a whole new turn.

I don’t expect this will change the Twitter servers, and don’t expect a significant amount of the Twitterverse to participate.  But I do hope the folks at Twitter take a closer look at the community and figure things out. Yes, no doubt they are working at it, but how long are we going to just roll over on this?  Just being able to do something makes me feel better about it.  Believe it or not, some feel a little more passionate than me and threaten to leave Twitter for good until their issues are fixed.  Jason’s reasoning: does it make sense to rely on an unreliable service?

What do you think, will you participate? Why?

Any other ideas of what we can do besides whine?  Or is Twitter not that important to you?

Related posts

• Shey’s MonthCap – 09/08
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• We Need Social Media Interpreters, not more Evangelists