I am particularly interested in hearing what you do that may be similar or different to my own routine.  Since social media consumption is one of those things that your friends normally don’t have a chance to witness, here’s your chance to share!

My social media habits can be basically broken down into three parts: a beginning of the day, catch-up phase, a midday working segment, and an evening entertainment portion.  Here’s how I do it.

Playing catch-up

As soon as I wake up (and admittedly often before I’m completely out of bed), I need to catch up with whatever news or conversation took off while I was catching my z’s.  My tool of choice for this is my iPhone as the web and application interfaces for the services I use make for more bite-sized (breakfastlike?) bits of news.  The routine normally goes like this:

1. Check Google Reader.  The foundation of the day’s news, Reader provides distraction-free access to the newsmakers that are most important to me.  I share items I think my Facebook and FriendFeed contacts would like, star resources I know I’ll revisit over the next week or so, and mark as unread stories I plan on interacting with more deeply in the next phase.
2. Check FriendFeed.  The Web gets a bit more personal as I move to the next layer.  I flip to FriendFeed’s excellent iPhone interface and immediately check the “Best Of” category to see which of the articles I just encountered are holding the most sway within the community.  I occasionally ‘like’ items, but normally just use FriendFeed as a social barometer.
3. Check Twitter.  Even more social now, I look to see if anyone’s replied to me on Twitter or if any breaking news has gone down more locally that wasn’t caught by the wider nets of Reader of FriendFeed.
4. Check Facebook.  Finally I have the opportunity to scan through news within the community that’s closest to my heart– my classmates, coworkers, and friends.  Anything of importance here is first to be dealt with later in the day.
5. Check E-mail.  Direct to me and much more likely to be urgent, this step gets to wait!

Getting it done

Later in the day, preferably with coffee at hand, I’m set to tackle everything that caught my attention earlier.  It’s not quite as linear a process, though, as a full-fledged PC makes multitasking much easier than the iPhone does.  Here’s what I normally do during this step.

• Fully interact with the morning’s news, including commenting on blogs, sharing articles with notes in Reader, liking and commenting on FriendFeed items, wishing people happy birthdays in Facebook, and so forth.
• If my resources allow me to write a new article for andydesoto.com or another one of my properties, I do so.
• I consult Clicky Web Analytics to see if any of my blog articles had success throughout the prior day, and if so, where that traffic came from.
• I keep up with my friends on LiveJournal (I no longer use the service myself, but there is a small group of people I still attend to there, a remnant from high school that opted not to “graduate” to Facebook).

Primarily, this is an optional segment that really depends on whether I myself have any thoughts to get out to the Web via blogging.

Having fun

The least structured step of all, my free evenings are when I have an opportunity to engage in anything that catches my interest, including any or all of the above items.  This is occasionally where computer games come into play, although not very often (yet Kongregate, Team Fortress 2, and others remain staples).  If there’s anything that needs any more time beyond what I gave it earlier, I tackle that, and depending on whether or not I spent the afternoon blogging, I may have conversation, compliments, or criticisms to deal with.

So that about describes my social media workflow.  Try as I might, I can’t safely predict what this will look like in January 2010.  How do you engage with social news?

Related posts:

1. Ten social media predictions for 2009 All the cool kids are doing it (i.e., my three...
2. An Ultimate Guide to Social Media Simplification How do we simplify our social network existences and ably...
3. Social network pruning heuristic #2: Eliminate cross-posters Fortunately, the solution is simple, albeit time-consuming: take a few...

If you’d like to contribute (and I hope you do), I’d love to read more of your visions of  ”the perfect FriendFeed.”  Describe what would make FriendFeed perfect for YOU, and post it on your blog.  Feel free to drop or change features in any way you like. Yes, technically you’re doing my work for me, but it’s mutually beneficial because we’ll do our best to create a product that you like, and even if we don’t, maybe someone else will (since the concepts are out there for everyone).

I thought about this offer and realized my dream for FriendFeed is simple, even if abstract: I want to be able to sum up what the service does in a sentence or two and share this with my friends.

Now, when researching this request, I discovered FriendFeed actually does have a very abbreviated explanation, as delineated on its About page: 

FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.

Unfortunately, I’ve found the user experience is not quite as simple.  Sure, being a FriendFeed user entails what’s described above, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.  In order to successfully navigate the noisy waters of FriendFeed, you’ve got to navigate amongst the treacherous shoals of FriendFeed’s most popular ego-memeiacs, master the imprecise art of hiding sources and friends-of-friends, and more– FriendFeed’s raw power detracts from its ability to meet its well-defined mission statement.

“If another user is interacting with my content at chance, he or she will be just as likely to encounter the Tweet I took ten seconds to write as the blog article that took forty-five minutes. There’s something unbalanced about this.” 

I need to know what FriendFeed is and why I should be using it.  When I log in, there are immediately too many choices to make: I can scroll through my feed, peruse the “Best Of” categories, check up on specific friends, read content, comment on it, or merely “like” it, and so forth– it’s the sort of thing that takes too much focus.

Perhaps the issue is that within FriendFeed; all feed items are treated equally.  This is somewhat upsetting to me, and here’s why: I spend a considerable amount of time preparing and composing these blog articles, but as this article hits the RSS press, it’ll receive the same exposure as an offhand tweet I might shoot off while in the midst of a paragraph here.  This means that if another user is interacting with my content at chance, he or she will be just as likely to encounter the Tweet I took ten seconds to write as the blog article that took forty-five minutes.  There’s something unbalanced about this.

Perhaps I’m getting off track here.  The bottom line is this: I love the notion of FriendFeed.  I admire its developers.  I value the community.  I love the content that’s shared.  So why is it so frustrating for me to use?

What are you, FriendFeed?

Related posts:

1. A FriendFeed tipping point? If anyone can draw thousands of users to a new...
2. Filtering: Why FriendFeed is taking the web to the next level As more content and conversation is aggregated, aggregation services have...
3. FriendFeed not worth the time (or the hype) How can an aggregator be so popular, even with its...

#1: More automation.

We’re getting there with devices like the Eye-Fi card and the upcoming Fitbit, but we can do even better: I want to see services and technology that limit the time I’m required to actively spend uploading, sharing, and tagging content.  I don’t ever want to see a Flickr upload screen again, choose tags for my online video, manually share my location on Brightkite, and so forth.  If it can be digitally “outsourced,” I want that option.  That’s why services like Tagcow appealed to me so greatly when they first emerged– I want to be able to spend more time creating and discussing great content than preparing and labeling it for the Web.

#2: Fewer options.

In a way, I’m fortunate that the tech economy is forcing companies to rethink their strategies and limiting the number of new startups because, as far as I’m concerned, there are much too many similar services in the same space.  Take a look at FriendFeed’s supported import list, for instance– most web users probably only know a quarter of the items on that list.   I don’t like this because the more spread out users are over different sites, the more effort I need to go to to engage with those users.  If you wanted to visit all of your old college friends, for instance, you’d have to spend weeks traveling across the corners of the globe to meet up with all of them.  The way users are scattered all over the net mirrors this difficulty, it doesn’t solve it, and it’s time for this to change.

#3: Ubiquitous location awareness.

With the improvements in Web-ready mobile phones, this might be what I’m most eager for: every social media service we know and love to be deeply integrated with physical location and GPS.  I want to be able to walk into a restaurant, drycleaner, or bar, and instantly know (without having to search, etc.) what my friends and contacts think about that location, how many times they’ve been there, and if they’re on the premises as I check.  Assuming they opt in, of course, I want to know where my good buddies are on campus so that we can make plans to meet up if we discover we’re near each other.  I think location is the next frontier of the social web, and I am dying to see it evolve.

#4: More behavioral research within social media companies.

As a social scientist in training, this one’s personal: I want to see some scientific research and careful survey analysis driving development and tuning of social media technologies.  It’s unfortunate that the once-generous venture capital used to back many of these companies goes only to programmers, engineers, and designers– with such a significant human component to many of these services, it’s surprising to me that no one explores the human aspects of these sites in development.  What our intuitions tell us users would prefer is not always reality, and this should be reflected by a growing adoption of more serious scientific rigor.

#5: Improved accessibility, ease of use, and marketing.

To the early adopter set, Twitter is old news.  Trying to get my friends and family on such a service, though, is often like pulling teeth.  No one in my community that I interact with on a regular basis has read up on Twitter as much as I have, so if anyone could talk people into joining these services, it should be me, right?  It’s unfortunately quite rare that I meet success in getting new users to join.  I would like to see an increased effort by social media companies to market their products to all users, not just those that go on to blog or Tweet or FriendFeed about them (which means, of course, that these messages fall on the ears of the proverbial choir, not the congregation).  Help me get you more users, social media companies, please!  It’ll help you in the long run.

To wrap this up, I just want to point out a common theme among these items here: simplification.  As I wrote at the beginning of the month, there’s just too much clutter and noise out there today.  I want a new set of tools that help me deal with this big mess.  Will 2009 bring these tools, or will it bring additional complications?  I’ve turned into quite the social media cynic over the last few weeks– New Year, please, reverse this trend!

Related posts:

1. Ten social media predictions for 2009 All the cool kids are doing it (i.e., my three...
2. An Ultimate Guide to Social Media Simplification How do we simplify our social network existences and ably...
3. Social media for colleges and universities Twelve days ago, a second-generation alumnus of my university, the...

1. A high profile crime (or intended crime) will renew focus on social media’s privacy controls.  Most people that regularly run in social media circles are generally unafraid of sharing sensitive information with the Web.  Whether it’s family photos, geocoordinates of private locations, or something as simple as a telephone number, people are becoming more and more open each day (as opposed to the more private, anonymous stylings of the early 00’s).  I predict that someone sharing too much information online will lead to a serious event that will cause social circles to reconsider how much information individuals openly share on the Internet.
2. Large social sites will continue to grow as others peter out.  Today’s most popular social sites (especially Facebook) have met resounding success with Internet users across the globe.  Unfortunately, as people’s time becomes more and more precious, they’ll start spending more time on high-return, high population networks like Facebook in lieu of smaller networks.
3. Flickr will find itself in serious trouble.  Flickr, everyone’s favorite photo sharing site, is going to go through some hard times directly related to Yahoo’s financial and corporate troubles.  We’re going to see a reduction in features, perhaps, or caps on uploads, etc. for even Pro-level users.  It won’t be pretty.
4. FriendFeed will die.  Everyone else seems to be swearing that FriendFeed is the site to watch, so I’m going to be the one that comes out and says it: there won’t be a FriendFeed in 2010– at least, not as we know it today.  Its shortcomings will lead users to alternatives that are simpler to sort out.  The only remaining FriendFeed users will be those that use it as merely a social bridge.
5. Universal blog commenting services will be unified under WordPress.  Automattic’s a smart group and it won’t let Disqus, IntenseDebate, and other companies have the better commenting features.  WordPress will pick one, acquire it, and the others will disappear.  My bet is on Disqus.  Edit: I’m told by Amber on Friendfeed that Automattic chose Intense Debate a few months ago.  Is this just for WordPress hosted blogs?
6. Facebook Connect will take off.  The minute someone figures out a way to easily widgetize blogs, personal websites, and other Web locations with Facebook Connect, use of the service will skyrocket.  Seriously– if you capitalize on this now, I bet you’ll make a killing.
7. Facebook will be the first company to succeed in social mobile networking.  Expect to be able to locate your buddies within Facebook on a map, courtesy of one of Facebook’s own applications.  As everything goes mobile and iPod Touches and iPhones increase in popularity, as they should, all your friends will be even more trackable.  Expect a huge furor over this, of course (maybe regarding #1?), but the community will deal, just as it’s done with the Mini-Feed and the site redesign.  Fledgling social mobile networks (e.g., Loopt) will die.
8. The iPhone will continue to be the gadget of 2009.  Anyone who’s used one knows it’s a remarkable device.  It’s going to get even better.  I can’t say whether or not a new model will be released (it’s probably not even in Apple’s best interests), but the combination of camera, GPS and slick user interface will lead us straight into 2010.  (Unless these weird large-format iPod Touch rumors turn out to be true; who knows what that would mean!)
9. SixApart will continue to suck.  Messing up LiveJournal and Pownce were just the beginning.  SixApart is going to make a lot more people angry.
10. Social networks will see a decline in usage, in general.  Individuals will come to realize that online social networking, on its lonesome, is truly not a social activity.  Only by tapping into real-world relationships will these networks grow. 

Agree or disagree with these?  Please share!

If you enjoyed this, you might want to read my social media wishlist for 2009– what I’d like to see, not what I expect to!

Related posts:

1. Five things I want to see in social media in 2009 Here are five things I think would contribute to social...
2. My social media workflow My social media habits can be basically broken down into...
3. Why follow people you don’t know on social networking sites? I am curious to hear why you think it's a...

You could be the smartest, most interesting guy or gal on the Web, but if you don’t have a place to share your ideas, conversations, and content, you’re no better off than the average Joe. If you’re a content creator, there’s little better you can do for yourself than make sure you call a responsive and nurturing community home.  However, your time is limited, right?  In the potentially time-consuming world of social media, you can’t devote equal attention to all the networks and communities out there.  Instead, you’ve got to be choosy about where you take your digital business.  This article will talk about the sorts of questions you should ask yourself before settling down in an online community and provide answers to these questions for some of the most popular options.

Five things to think about

Here are five questions you might want to ask yourself before you get settled.

1. How big is your potential audience?  If you’ve got things to share, you want the largest possible community that can relate to what you’re sharing.  If you write about social media technologies, you probably don’t want to engage an audience on MySpace, even though it’s a top social network.  In the same way, if you’ve got an indie music group you want to promote, you’re less likely to encounter admirers of your art on FriendFeed.
2. How easy is it for individuals to interact with your content?  You want it to be as easy as possible to engage with community members.  If users need to go through complex sign-in rigamarole just to post a comment on your blog, for instance, you might be losing valuable input from those unwilling to enter their website one more time.  You’ll also want to think about your primary form of media, as well; if you’re a video producer, for instance, you’ll want to select a community that has strong video support.
3. What personalities will you have to deal with?  Communities are defined by their members, and often, a few big names can control the growth and evolution of an entire network.  If you don’t mesh to a certain extent with these individuals, you may find an angry mob confronting you at every turn.  Disagreements may inspire personal growth, but flame wars and more serious arguments don’t do anyone any good.
4. What sort of time investment is required?  Top members of many social networks spend hour after hour closely monitoring the success of their brand or content.  If you don’t have this sort of time to spend, make sure to avoid these services.  Although they can provide greater investments in the long run, you don’t want to have to sacrifice the time you’d spend creating micromanaging a low-return network.
5. Is the community here for good?  Needless to say, don’t invest in a network that might disappear when times go sour.  You want all your hard work to last, right?

Five communities to consider

Let’s consider five popular community options within the framework of these five questions.

Facebook

Facebook is one of the largest and most successful social networks, surpassing over 90,000,000 users as of the summer.  As many of the individuals on Facebook will be your own real-life friends, you’ll enjoy higher conversion rates for your content, especially thanks to Facebook’s rich friend tagging features.  Interaction is simple, as well, and you have fine-tuned control over who attends to your content.  Although it’s a solid service, though, it’s difficult for those that don’t already know of your content to discover it, as search and other tools are somewhat lacking.  It’s my personal hunch, though, that this may soon change.

FriendFeed

FriendFeed, an up-and-coming service announced at the close of 2007, is already becoming the top choice of many.  Although the userbase isn’t optimal size-wise, its highly engaged users will be sure to interact with your content if it appeals to them.  Search, commenting, and sharing are all extremely simple.  Unfortunately, it’s tricky– and time-consuming– to use FriendFeed properly as professional and personal content can be difficult to tease apart.  The clout carried by certain users, as well, can make it tricky to find a following.  It’s likely FriendFeed is here to stay.

Twitter

Another popular network, Twitter is the rising star and eclipsed by the greats such as Facebook.  Although Twitter’s simplicity makes interaction easy, becoming an advanced user can begin to take up large amounts of time and energy.  Additionally, Twitter’s search and other tools are limited; however, this is in part made up for by the strong user-created tools.  There will always be room for your content on Twitter, but will discussions be meaningful?

Blogs

Want ultimate control?  You can have it with a blog.  Your potential audience is the entire Internet, but beware: interaction can be inconvenient for users that aren’t regular visitors.  Once you have an audience, however, blogs carry a more permanent, authoritative feel– possibly much more rewarding in the long run.

Roll Your Own

Don’t like any of these options?  The last quarter of 2008 has introduced two new ways to gather a community around your site, rather than have individuals come to you.  Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect both put tools directly in your hands for community control.  The downside, though, is that unless you’re already a popular authority, it’s unlikely more than a handful of users will be drawn into your community.  If you’re already a household name, though, the possibilities are endless; just consider the heft of Leo Laporte’s TWiT Army.

Share your own advice

What do you consider to be your primary community on the Internet?  How rewarding have your experiences been with this group or service?  As I mentioned earlier, I considered Pownce my main digital home away from home.  Now that it’s gone, I’ve had to ask myself the exact same questions I shared above.  I’m still not convinced on what I’ll be calling home next.

This site isn’t anything without valuable readers like you!  Make sure you’re subscribed via RSS.

Related posts:

1. An Ultimate Guide to Social Media Simplification How do we simplify our social network existences and ably...
2. Social network pruning heuristic #2: Eliminate cross-posters Fortunately, the solution is simple, albeit time-consuming: take a few...
3. Facebook low on content, interaction Five days ago, Facebook introduced the ability for users to...

I once read somewhere that it was a no-no to talk about this sort of thing on your site.  I don’t remember who said it– maybe Chris Brogan, Problogger, or someone like that (let’s be honest, it’s all kind of the same anyway).  They said, “Never, ever start off a post talking about why you haven’t posted.  It’s unprofessional.”  Sorry guys, I’m going to be unprofessional for a minute here.

Sure, it’s tough managing a blog and an undergraduate existence at the same time, anyway, but let’s put curricular activities aside for a moment; the news just isn’t what it was Summer 2008.  Back then, before the harder economic times hit, new services and utilities were basically announced daily.  That’s what I love– being the first to try out something new and share it here.  I really am the typical tech early adopter.  However, for a long period of time following, practically the only news flowing through top-tier blogs like TechCrunch were notices of layoffs and deadpoolings.

I don’t blog to cover the reality of social media and online networking– I write to share the magic of it.

I don’t blog to cover the reality of social media and online networking– I write to share the magic of it.  Awesome things like being able to take a photo of a CD album on your phone and instantly order it online, giving a penpal from overseas a walking tour of your neighborhood, things like that.

And as the reality of the tougher economic times has settled in, things even more unusual have been popping up in the place of those dreadfully realistic job loss reportings.  Aptly-named “bitchmemes” arise just to garner traffic on offdays.  People take professional things personally and make their personal lives their professions.  Even a service I once admired, now-overly-self-referential FriendFeed, has nothing better to do than crown an unwilling Queen.

Nobody seems to be having real fun, and I guess that’s why I’m having a hard time writing about it.

Where to from here?

Where do I go from here?  The simplest option would be to close down andydesoto.com, as a blog that never publishes isn’t necessarily worth keeping around.  I think that’s the easy way out, though, as there’s no reason the site shouldn’t live to see it’s first birthday.  No, I’m still excited about technology, even in this unusual environment.  Just take Robert Scoble’s recent interview of Tim O’Reilly, for instance– there’s no way you can watch that and not get excited about the future of the web.

Maybe I’ll turn to the recommendations of those that bump into this post.  More than enough people are covering the tech basics.  Perhaps I ought to drill even deeper into a niche.

What can andydesoto.com do for you?

Related posts:

1. Must blogging be a balancing act? Overwhelmed. That's often how I feel upon sitting down at...
2. Blogging is a big game For a nonprofessional like me, blogging isn't work. Rather, it's...
3. Can online networks be the foundation of true relationships? Two nights ago, I wrote a brief post hypothesizing that...

Please drop by if you’re in the mood for shorter, less formal, occasionally personal posts!

Related posts:

1. The week of the redesigns It's been a busy week in the world of web...
2. Thanks for reading! I was just about to settle in for the evening...
3. About Me I‘m Andy DeSoto, a 22-year native of Fairfax, Virginia.  I...

Why?  As I upload beautiful concert footage in 720p, a format heretofore rarely utilized in wide distribution, it’s occurring to me that I am uploading the only high definition video footage of wind bands on either YouTube or Facebook.

Why is this important?

I upload concert videos to social media sites for two main reasons: (1) so that current members of the ensemble can enjoy archival copies of their performance and refer back to them for academic use or personal enjoyment, and (2) so that the community outside William & Mary can see a little bit about what the Wind Symphony performs on a regular basis.  The fact that I have the only HD concert footage online benefits both my purposes.

First, the resolution is such that individual players can actually see themselves perform– lower quality video distorts both video and audio alike.  Additionally, the high resolution is just as appropriate for playing back on a computer, television screen, or portable device– regardless of where a video is being played back, quality is maximal.

Secondly, individuals that are interested in joining the Wind Symphony, community members considering coming to one of our concerts, or fellow musicians looking for alternative interpretations of band repertoire can all benefit from viewing our performances.  We’re no Berlin Philharmoniker, but a student might watch one of our videos over the work of a top-notch professional group because he or she can see and hear much more clearly.

Staying on the cutting edge

In the world of social media, it’s often the case that the first person to an idea wins.  I’m sure more than one individual considered taking a photo of a cat with a cheeseburger, for instance, but the first one to turn that idea into a reality won instant stardom.  In a similar way, it pays to have members of your student organizations, etc. to keep an eye on evolving technologies, because you never know when being on the cutting edge may pay off.  Will HD videos on YouTube and Facebook attract more members to the Wind Symphony or net us a larger audience?  It’s hard to say, but I prefer to find out myself, rather than read about someone finding success in the news a few weeks later.

Here’s a video, in case you’re curious; make sure to visit YouTube directly to enjoy full quality.

Related posts:

1. One less reason to use Vimeo, even YouTube This is HUGE for me. Why? I have virtually no...
2. Social media basics provide necessary spice Here at andydesoto.com, I often like to discuss how social...
3. Observations on social media compression When time is limited, human beings have a tendency to...

The Soup.io guys have worked to make sure this process is super simple.  You enter your old Pownce username, password, and e-mail address, and the system begins to upload all of your previous public Pownce messages to a new account.  Here’s a shot of the simple interface:

After entering in your information, in no time at all Soup has constructed a brand new microblog for you filled with your old messages.  It was a pleasant surprise to see that the photos, videos, and other files embedded within my Pownce posts correctly translated over to rich media items on my brand new Soup (which you can check out by going to soup.io/andytest.)
I only have

As you can see, the Migration Tool even uploads my Pownce avatar image and personal (public) details from my account and prepopulates my Soup account information with the same data.  Sweet!

I really love Soup and think it’s probably the best microblogging application out there today, but the caring the service has shown members of Pownce has really gone above and beyond my personal expectations.  The climate on Pownce right now is bitter and unhappy, and the Soup team recognizes this.

I only have a few guffs with the service as it stands: first, the Migration Tool wouldn’t let me import my Pownce messages into my existing Soup account (which I’d like to continue using).  Secondly, they can’t do anything with my private messages– but as there’s not necessarily a structure that supports this on Soup, that’s not so bad (and perhaps it’s best that those messages remain on Pownce, anyway).

Edit: I’ve been shown that you can import into an existing Soup.  You’ve just got to be logged in first.  That was easy!

All in all, though, Soup has done a fantastic job welcoming the Pownce community, and I really recommend that each and every reader go out and play around with this fantastic web service.

If you decide to start a new Soup account, be sure to friend me!

Related posts:

1. Why am I just now discovering soup.io? It has been unofficial lifestreaming month here on andydesoto.com, and...
2. What is Swurl? If you've ever spent any time with the microblogging tool...
3. Other social networks to try besides Facebook My blog feed passes by a captive audience of my...

Simplicity, as I’m defining it, is a step beyond mere filtering– it’s what we reach once we’ve refined, drilled down, and pared away all but the necessities of our social web and social media experiences.

However, with the developments of the last month and a half or so, it’s clear to me that the needs of the social web have moved past filtering, the next step I posit in my July post.  As the economy impacts the tech sphere, once-sturdy Web 2.0 startups crumble, and even the most powerful publishing companies begin to feel the strain, I’m realizing that what I and many fellow users need now is simplicity.  Simplicity, as I’m defining it, is a step beyond mere filtering– it’s what we reach once we’ve refined, drilled down, and pared away all but the necessities of our social web and social media experiences.

What evidence is there that we’re turning toward Simplification?

Evidence supports this hypothesis on many levels.  Here are a few reasons:

• Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect have launched, launching redoubled attention toward open social graphs; both services have met tremendous initial success in a field in which OpenID and MySpace Connect have floundered.
• Smaller services are being shut down or integrated into existing, larger networks, like Six Apart’s recent cannibalization of Pownce.
• The worsening economy has eliminated many tech jobs; fewer people are now carrying the industry and social media users have less time to devote to social media activities.

Even more anecdotal reports emphasize that the noise, even after filtering, is just becoming too much.  The Inquisitr’s excellent Steven Hodson writes (emphasis added), 

I wonder if at some point this whole world of hyper-conversations won’t begin to collapse in on itself. I know that technology and the Internet is changing how we percieve [sic] and deal with our world. I know that it is changing us as human beings and I’m okay with that - in fact I think it is great thing. But we are not processors living the life of Moore’s Law. We do have finite edges of tolerance to what our minds can absorb and logically deal with.

Steven’s right, but what he hypothesizes is already occuring– we are collapsing in on ourself, as we speak.  We’re in the process of simplifying, pruning, cutting down, eliminating; doing whatever we can to make things simpler for ourselves.

The social cycle

It’s my belief that the web will soon begin back at where it started– with quality content.  I’d like to introduce a little model I’m giving the working name “Social Cycle,” because that’s exactly what it is– the continuous circuit on which I think we’re firmly planted.

We can see the path that we’ve already taken, and hence where we’re headed.  Starting at the top:

1. The social web is built on quality CONTENT that evokes interest, amusement, or emotional engagement.
2. CONVERSATION is generated around this content and becomes as important as the content itself.
3. The content and conversation occurring across require AGGREGATION that combines these streams.
4. Users FILTER from the aggregates the content that matters to them.
5. Users SIMPLIFY, attending only to the services, content, and conversations that meet their needs.
6. Content, conversation, and services that do not meet needs die, leaving only the highest quality CONTENT.

And, as you can see, the cycle begins again.

FriendFeed predicted the Filtering step, but will it help its users simplify?  The first services to offer these options will soon find themselves on the top of the dogpile.

What do you think?  Is Simplification next on the social web’s roadmap?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. An Ultimate Guide to Social Media Simplification How do we simplify our social network existences and ably...
2. Filtering: Why FriendFeed is taking the web to the next level As more content and conversation is aggregated, aggregation services have...
3. Observations on social media compression When time is limited, human beings have a tendency to...

This is HUGE for me.  Why?  I have virtually no reason whatsoever to use Vimeo anymore, a site I’ve been relying on recently for its HD upload feature (which has been out for a while now– same with a photo hosting site I use called SmugMug).  I’m able to take all my business directly to Facebook.  Here’s why:

• Facebook doesn’t have a weekly upload limit, and a 20 minute length limit.  Vimeo only allows me 500 MB per week (and this flies by with HD), and YouTube doesn’t let me go over 10 minutes per video.
• I have no social graph on Vimeo, whereas on Facebook I have dozens of individuals that might be interested in seeing the content I upload or share.
• There’s no need for me to have a social outpost for an organization I oversee on Vimeo or YouTube when all the video can be newly consolidated onto Facebook.

And this is just the beginning of it.  YouTube officially knocked Vimeo out of the ring for me.  And YouTube is hanging on by a thread.  The only thing that’s keeping the two apart is that while YouTube has an enormous audience base and is the go-to location for video searches, it still benefits me to have content up there.  On Vimeo, though, the only two pros were the HD capability and spunky social feel.

There is one downside, though, even if I’m being a bit selfish: the embed options are still poor and I had to manually resize this video to fit within the dimensions of my blog.  Oh well, this is something worth making do for!

Link me your favorite HD Facebook video!  I’d love to see it!

What do you think about these new features?  Whose HD video service does it for you?  Do you even care about HD video?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Once this Flip Mino HD hits widespread circulation, something tells me a lot more people are going to keep HD support on their wishlists.

While you’re reading this, why don’t you add yourself to the new Google Friend Connect widget on the right of this page and join the community?

Related posts:

1. Enormous opportunities in social media for student organizations Oftentimes, I find a way or two to wiggle my...
2. Andrea Rene for Mahalo Vlog Idol We take a break from our regularly-scheduled seriousness to make...
3. Flip Camcorder provides easy access to video Just a few days ago I wrote a post emphasizing...

We have some very big news today at Pownce. We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.

Needless to say, despite this good news for Leah, Mike Malone, and others (read the Inquisitr for commentary on the business end of things), it’s a shame to see the service go. I myself am a so-called “Featured User” on the site and have spent many hours meeting and interacting with over 1,000 friends and followers– 1,000 connections which will vanish in just two weeks.

As with any bittersweet news, though, there are always lessons to be learned. When news like this strikes a dedicated community, it’s worth considering a few basic questions.

What went wrong?

Something went wrong, that much is obvious, as evidenced by Jason Calacanis’ brusque image post. Where “competing” microblogging service Twitter took off between January and August 2007, Pownce never gained the critical momentum it took to gain the appropriate popularity. (I myself joined the service in July.)

What led to this plateau, though? Here are a few thoughts.

• A failure to distinguish itself. Pownce was largely different from its competitors; anyone who followed the site knew that. The developers, though, didn’t capitalize on these distinctions, despite the fact that they could have easily.
• A split identity. Nobody ever quite knew what Pownce was. Many users took advantage of its solid media-sharing capabilities to, as suggested by the site’s tagline, “share stuff with their friends.” Other users used the service more as a personal microblogging platform of sorts. Both sorts of users occasionally found friction in their different visions of what Pownce was.
• No push by the big names behind the site. Founder and web icon Kevin Rose was in a large part responsible for the site’s initial success, as noted by CenterNetwork’s Allen Stern. However, when the site needed his influence the most, he bailed, openly calling for Twitter, not Pownce, followers on his Diggnation podcast.
• A lack of innovation. Pownce has basically remained the same service since its inception. Compare this to FriendFeed, for instance, which has had 10 times as many new developments and feature additions in a quarter of the time.

Despite these failures, though, a core group on Pownce continued to thrive, and I’ll be the first to admit it was pleasant having a semi-anonymous, simple forum to which I could turn at any hour of any day for advice, humor, or company.

What happens now?

Like mirror suddenly struck by a hammer, the Pownce community has instantly fragmented into a dozen different directions. Many users have come to rely on the connections they’ve made thanks to the service; nobody knows quite what to do as well-known names urge the disillusioned group towards Twitter, Ning, or homebrewed temporary alternatives.

The largest segment of the Pownce population has tentatively headed toward Vox, a lightweight SixApart blogging tool released quite some time ago, but initial reactions are negative. There are too many buttons, too many features; it’s not nearly as streamlined as the simple Pownce system was. As a I remarked within the Pownce community last night, the whole SixApart experience is all very “I’m a PC.” Social media requires a simplicity and ease of use to function, and Vox (and even TypePad) has neither.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m pleased that I’ll have one fewer social media site to keep up with over the coming months. However, I wish it hadn’t been Pownce to go.

What are your thoughts? If you’re a Pownce user, how are you handling the situation? Are the connections you’ve made through the site truly important? Convince me.

Related posts:

1. The Pownce Yearbook: community revitalization in action Yesterday, a "manga face" meme swept through the communities on...
2. At long last! Finally! I've been waiting for Facebook to suggest friends ever...
3. A FriendFeed tipping point? If anyone can draw thousands of users to a new...

Videos are worth a thousand pictures

Thanks to the advent of digital cameras with video modes, affordable, easy-to-use video cameras, and services that can transmogrify stills into video footage, video is more accessible than it ever has been.  Still, it goes underutilized.  Out of the many individuals I know, there’s only a mere handful that I’d call video content creators.  Video’s impact can be so incredibly meaningful, however.  Just the other day, I took a few minutes to record a great performance by a student-organized jazz group on campus.

I’m looking forward to sharing this footage with the musicians because I know they might enjoy watching this ten or fifteen years down the road.

Social media jazzes up e-mails

Although I’ve always been a proponent of keeping electronic communication short and to the point, it never hurts to provide your e-mail recipients with more content or entertainment, should they choose to accept it.  One of my personal favorite techniques is linking to addicting Flash games, funny photos that have bubbled to the top in FriendFeed, or even just Wikipedia articles shedding more light onto the topic in question.  This way, folks strapped for time can still peruse a distilled gist of your message, while those looking to get into greater depth can do so.

Possibilities are endless

These are just a few ways to integrate social media into day-to-day activity.  What do you do to tie in the online world with the one that’s more immediately meaningful?

Related posts:

1. Enormous opportunities in social media for student organizations Oftentimes, I find a way or two to wiggle my...
2. Social media for colleges and universities, part two Last Monday I wrote a concerned article discussing why social...
3. Social media for colleges and universities Twelve days ago, a second-generation alumnus of my university, the...

Trying to fit a new media-oriented news source into an already oversaturated campus, though, has been a bit of a challenge. Over the last few days, I’ve been asking myself, “How do I provide a unique experience to a wide audience while remaining relevant?” I’ll share some of my answers today.

New media setbacks

First of all, due to the relative recency of new media technology, starting an alternative campus news source necessitates butting heads with preexisting heritage media networks. Campus newspapers started over 50 years ago have both the reputation and manpower to succeed even regardless of content, to an extent. New productions are not as lucky. The road to mainstream adoption within a community is a treacherous one for two reasons: not only does the population at hand need to trust you as a news source, but they also must come to trust the method of delivery as well– the technology underlying the content.

With these disadvantages at hand, space, attention, and time to make social media-driven news work is scarce. Fortunately for us, though, there are things that can be done.

Solutions to making social media work

The first step to filling a niche is recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of established news sources within the community. Take out a sheet of paper and write these down, so they’re easier to visualize. You might realize, for instance, that one campus newspaper is loaded with financial resources and manpower but as a result is more closely tied to campus administration than the community might appreciate. Take advantage of this by covering gutsier stories.

Another source might cover great topics but is extremely poor at responding to readers. Capitalize by providing content in tune with the entire community, rather than just the newsmakers, and integrate outside input (suggestions, recommendations, criticism, and guests) as often as possible.

Choosing a vehicle of delivery is also a critical decision. I opted for a podcast, personally, because of the low barrier to entry, novelty of the medium, and scarcity of other mainstream audio productions on campus. You might want to roll your own Reddit or Digg to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. Perhaps a monthly video show is up the campus’ alley, or a daily Top 5 list; use your observations above to carefully craft your production to target your community even more efficiently.

At any rate, taking the time to set up your content can be just as important as the time that actually goes into producing it.  If there’s one thing I would have personally done differently in preparing the Powwow, I think I would have gauged campus interest a little more quantitatively: trying to field some sort of poll or survey to assist in planning.  This sort of research will both pique interest in your work before it even starts up and will also ensure a modicum of success at the same time, as individuals have already agreed to attend to your content.

When was the last time you launched an unusual form of content, technology, news source, or similar item?  Feel free to share your own experiences!

Related posts:

1. College news sources should be using full RSS feeds Last week, I spent a decent bit of time working...
2. My social media workflow My social media habits can be basically broken down into...
3. Social media for colleges and universities Twelve days ago, a second-generation alumnus of my university, the...

But what’s so social about this?  Not much, if you’re honest with yourself.  Even though this is hardly a groundbreaking realization, it’s still important; no matter how often this topic has been covered, if we haven’t found a solution, we must continue to discuss it: the unfortunate truth is that online social media pulls us away from being truly social, and in this game of tug of war, the only loser is often ourselves.

Sacrifices of being social

Maintaining networks and relationships online is impossible without turning attention away from the real world experience.  Consider the brief anecdote of me composing this blog post, for instance.  In order to write this article, I’ve got to sit down, indoors, with my desktop PC and spend around an hour working to the best of my ability to make my thoughts cogent and relatable.  The phone’s away, AIM is shut down, my door is closed; in other words, we sacrifice physical connections in order to build online ones.

Of course, the reverse functions in much the same way.  While eating dinner with friends, for example, the Internet is necessarily distant.  In order to be a polite and social creature, I owe my friends the attention and appreciation they deserve, which means the iPhone is away, laptops are closed, and computers are far.  I’m able to attend to my pals, but my e-mail, Google Reader items, and conversations on social networks remain out of reach.

We sacrifice physical connections in order to build online ones. 

If I spend too much time sequestered with a computer relating to online contacts, I’d quickly become disadvantaged in day-to-day interactions with my peers.  I’d be missing out on funny stories, great conversations, sports, music, and more, quickly earning the reputation of hermit, misanthrope, or worse.  Fewer people would be able to relate to me, be aware of me, or respect me.

Yet focusing on these relations carries online disadvantages.  Fewer readers subscribe to my blog or read my Tweets, I slowly become part of the outgroup on cutting-edge services such as FriendFeed, I’m not up to date on my tech news.

Finding balance?

Finding a solution to this tug of war is not necessarily easy.  Giving any social domain a half-hearted effort is much less rewarding than engaging fully.  Stopping in to check on a close friend once a month is as useless as writing a blog article just as frequently.

How can we manage this balancing act, though?  In my opinion, we can do so by merging domains.  If the people we interact with online are the same individuals we bump into in person, both modalities, online and off, have the same audience.  (Being Twitter friends with campus buddies, for instance.)

Likewise, if we streamline ways of broadcasting or interacting with both on and off-line friends simultaneously, we’d have another solution on our hands.  (Live streaming with friends for an internet audience, for example.)

How do you find balance?  In your social media tug of war, who wins?

Related posts:

1. Barriers to the social mobile web This past Friday, I was finally able to get Apple...
2. Can online networks be the foundation of true relationships? Two nights ago, I wrote a brief post hypothesizing that...
3. Assembling your “party”: Five kinds of friends you should make on social networks Making friends on social networking sites like Digg, Facebook, Twitter,...

Whether I deserve it or not may still be up for debate, but if you’re new to andydesoto.com, I’d like to extend my warmest welcome.  I started writing here about six months ago as a bit of a personal branding project and blog, but as I realized that 99% of my posts were on the social media and Internet technologies I so adore, I knew I had to devote the site to these topics.

Here at andydesoto.com, I focus on three things:

• covering interesting or meaningful news in the social media sphere
• providing hints, tips, and usability tricks for making the most out of the Internet
• commenting on trends, patterns, sites, or services that have caught my eye

If you’re more interested in one of these areas over another, feel free to use the navigation bar at the top of the site for your convenience.

A little bit about me, while we’re at it: I’m an undergraduate psychology and computer science student at the College of William & Mary, a small liberal arts public school a few hours south of Washington, DC.  Although psychology is my main academic interest, I make more than enough time to be passionate about technology.  Because the books can keep me busy, sometimes thoughts fit more easily into a microblogging medium; feel free to follow me on Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed if you like (or even hit up my Sweetcron-powered lifestream).

Thanks for reading, and thanks Louis!

While you’re here, make sure to subscribe via RSS!  Don’t forget to hit up Louis’ other recommended blogs, either:  Fresh Networks Blog, Shakespeare I Ain’t, al3x.net, and elliotth’s blog.

Related posts:

1. Reading better, writing better, working better? It's finally time for me to bite the bullet and...
2. New Psychology community on Mixx.com I'm proudly announcing a brand new Psychology Community on Mixx.com...
3. The Fall 2008 Roadmap The last four months have been a very slow, steady...

Blogging is a sports match

Competition.  Rivalries.  Team spirit.  Sweat.  Just like on the playing field, the blogosphere can be demanding, inhospitable, and rough.  No matter what you look at, whether it’s the titanic rivalry between TechCrunch and Duncan Riley’s Inquisitr or underdog microbloggers trying to make names for themselves, this field is never uninteresting.

In sports, fans root for their favorite teams and players, and it’s no different in the arena of the web.  When you write a blog post, you’re representing a team, whether it’s yours, your employer’s, or otherwise.  Hit a home run and the fans will adore you; strike out article after article and you’ll empty the grandstand.

Blogging is a video game

Video games require a mix of intensely tactical planning and split-second decisionmaking. Blogging’s no different.

Just like characters in traditional roleplaying games level up their skills and attributes with time and effort, careful and cunning application of resources in the blogging world can reap great rewards.  With so many metrics one can keep track of– pageviews, Technorati rankings, comments, subscribers, and more– it’s easy to draw a parallel between these and headshots, experience points, or Charisma.

Video games require a mix of intensely tactical planning and split-second decisionmaking.  Blogging’s no different: only with a resilience and knowledge of the genre do you have a chance against the metaphorical boss at the end of the level.

Blogging is a board game

Sometimes there’s no better way to have fun with a bunch of friends than with a classic board game like Monopoly.  The social aspects of blogging are really no different.  When you write an article, you aren’t creating a work in vacuum, but rather collaborating upon and engaging with the work of like and differently-minded thinkers.  Being involved in a community or niche gives you a group of people to turn to whenever you need input, assistance, or just a good time.

A board game is no fun without other players.  Neither is blogging.

Blogging is a big game

There are other ways blogging’s a big game, too.  Which have I missed?

Long story short, the unique characteristics of the activity make it competitive, challenging, and rewarding in many ways.  With such an enjoyable premise, who could call this work?