The Next Step for Social Networking
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Written by: Steve Schafer.
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Word Count: 829 |
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 |
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Has anyone besides me noticed that the trend of social networking sites has been to gather as many contacts as possible and then inundate them with with posts that don't really pertain to anything they want to hear (or read) about? It is as if we are meant to believe that our networking contacts want to hear about the party we are planning for this weekend, or that our friends want to hear about our next corporate meeting.
So what's wrong with that? Personally, I have accounts with two of the biggest social networking sites, as well as a few others. I check at least those two every morning. My "book" wall usually has about 160 new posts since I last visited, and my "little blue bird" site has around twice that many. While I would like to check and see what a certain segment of my contact list is up to, how do I even read that many posts to find the ones that interest me? I suppose I could start drinking my morning coffee from a bigger cup...
Now, I do not have a huge list of contacts. It's quite small, actually when compared to those that I have seen with thousands of followers, or subscribers, or whatnot. I am afraid to put more people on my contact list for fear that I will be overwhelmed by what my grandfather used to call "raucous cacophony" (loosely translated to mean "discordant noise").
The other problem is that my friends don't really care about my latest blog post on the advantages of micro-niche marketing, and my coworkers don't really want to hear about how Jason ended the evening with a lampshade on his head. As a matter of fact, every single post that I send out will wind up on the wall of people that care about the topic and people that don't. The more "noise" I introduce to a segment of my contacts, the fewer of my posts to those people will get read.
I am not alone here. The more contacts you have, the smaller percentage of posts you actually read. The percentage of your contacts that actually read your posts goes down as well. Seems a bit counter productive, doesn't it?
How about your "bio" page? Have you found yourself wanting to put something there that your friends will see, but decided not to because you don't want EVERYBODY to see it? I would love to have different bios for different segments of my contacts. I refuse, however, to open multiple accounts for different contact groups. That just seems like too much work, but I know many who have done just that.
So what do I want? I want my contacts categorize into groups that I can easily manage. I want to see what's going on with my friends or my coworkers or my networking contacts just by going to the appropriate "wall". I want to be on my "friends" wall and post something and know that only my "friends" will see it. I want to search for all of my contacts that live near me and quickly and easily send a post to just them. I want my coworkers to go to my profile and see that I am a responsible professional, or my networking contacts to read that I am a blue widgets expert. I want my friends to see the picture I took of Jason with the lampshade on his head, without my coworkers inquiring as to quality of my friends.
I think the biggest advantage is that my contacts know that when they see a post from me, it is something that may be of interest to them. I can help organize a last minute soiree with my friends, or gossip with my coworkers about office politics, and the posts will be much more likely to be read.
In essence, what I want is a "buzz conduit" that will direct the buzz to where I want it to go and give me just the buzz I want to hear at any given time. I want that, and I want some privacy back.
While it seems that the web 2.0 giants are not likely to do anything like this any time soon, there is a site launching that will. It will enable you, me, and everybody else that wants to to have their very own buzz conduit. It will be called buzzduit.com, and it's being built as we speak.
About the Author
If you want know the MINUTE it is ready for launch, click on over to buzzduit.com and sign up to the mailing list. You can also email support once your signed up with any questions or feedback.
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