Social media, is being killed not by fail whales , but social awkwardness. Facebook as a simple example – is everyone you add there really your "friend"? What’s a "friend", what ‘group’ do I put them in…it’s all very stressful. However bring into the mix social media services (sites where people collaborate, share content, discuss openly) and this stress becomes a real pain in the arse.
Twitter for example – you get alerts when people post a message. What happens when there is someone you know in real life, you are friendly with, but their Twitter stream is verbal diarrhoea? You force yourself to subscribe to them, because the social awkwardness matters more to you. Or Friendfeed, where people share links – it’s even worse. I would even go on to say it makes the service unusable.
Enter Google Reader, the tool I use to consume my online information habit. There is a feature that determines who e-mails you, and if they use Google Reader and share links, will come up along with your other subscriptions. It’s become such a valuable thing for me, that I now focus my attention on clearing items there ahead of my other few dozen subscriptions. The reason being, it’s the benefit of social media services without the social awkwardness.
Take Chris Saad, who was on my list. I didn’t like the things he shared – movie reviews – so I hid him. Up until now when a Google blog search will notify him (I expect him to find this and respond within 6 hours of posting this – watch!), he probably didn’t even know. However, if I was to unsubscribe from him on something like Twitter – he’d work it out – and say "dude, what’s the deal?". Because an inherent value of social media is that it’s collaborative communication; it’s just that too much communication from too many people can become more noise than signal.
This new age of mass collaboration is a massive thing, that I don’t think even the early adopters driving it, realise what’s happening. It’s the future of media – the fact people I know and trust will suggest articles, is the same human-powered recommendations the mass media have been doing -but so much more efficient, relevant and better.
And yet, Google Reader in its simplicity does it best – it’s almost like a secret. Mike Cannon-Brookes probably doesn’t even realise I track his shared links, but I love them because he reads a lot of RSS feeds on diverse subjects that interest me. Likewise, Kate Carruthers has such a diverse reading list I feel like I can whittle down my RSS subscriptions which stress me from having too much, and just get fed from her the good stuff.
Am I showing up in their field? Who knows. And quite frankly, who cares. I know I do for Brady Brim De-Forest, because he’s re-shared stuff I shared that I doubt he subscribes to (at least then). But that doubt detracts the fact it doesn’t matter. It’s a secret club – I go about clicking the "share" button for good content I come across, thinking perhaps someone follows them and would appreciate it. There’s no feedback mechanism, other than seeing other people encouraged to do the same. And this is the first time I’ve ever discussed the club openly. I think it exists. Maybe it doesn’t. But damn, it rocks.
I agree. I find the Google Reader share system the most valuable of all the sites I visit. And, like you, I look at that before anything else. I only wish it were easier to find and add people (I don’t have the benefit of Kate’s shared items), but on the flip side, that’s probably a good thing, seeing what has happened over on Friendfeed.
I think it gets easier to deal with ‘noise’ once you realise you don’t have to ‘be there’ all the time or keep up with everything. More so for people like us, who have a presence on most sites, the important/topical/popular things will float up sooner or later.
You raise a good point: you don’t have Kate, and that’s simply because, you don’t e-mail her. The parallel with your e-mail activity I think is a powerful thing. I really don’t get why Google hasn’t done more with making GMail the hub of a distributed social network.
Actually, I disagree that linking it with e-mail makes it powerful. As the community manager/support person at Tangler, I have a lot of contacts added from all sorts of different correspondence, and it actually takes more effort hiding people from chat and reader than it would finding people I actually want to follow.
Hey Elias – nice to hear you value the shared items 🙂 One thing I use for Twitter to segment the traffic is Tweetdeck which lets me keep track of my buddies (like you & Rai) & still have access to the general stream too.
Good point on the Google shared items – it is very clunky unless someone has emailed you. Google seems to have all the pieces to become a social network hub – email, IM, reader, etc. Don’t know why they don’t do something more explicit?
cheers, Kate
PS: Rai I found your email address & added you as a friend so now you can see my eclectic clips 😉
Mate, seriously, having kids is stressful. Being 40years old and having to live at home so you can look after your incontinent father is stressful. Social media is a doddle. If your mate is leaving stains on your Twitter underpants then tell him to pull his head in. It’s what friends do. Anyone else won’t give a flying toss. You’re making it way too complicated.
See, this is what I mean when I say Google doesn’t get the small simple things right. (I’ve bitched about this a lot in the past)
Kate, I still don’t see you on my shared list, and I tried adding you but nothing. For something so powerful, it’s a pain to get going.
/rant
Dude what the hell 🙂