This post by Mark has inspired me to publicly explore a bit on why I am involved with social networking and blogging. This is something I have been doing quite a bit of thinking about my introverted soul and how it has interacted with the Plurk vs. Twitter excitement of the past few weeks.

I had plurked and plurked and got the holy grail of the emoticons, I had the 10 invited friends and even greater than 50 Karma and then the algorithm changed and I was supposed to continue plurking like I did at first if I wanted to maintain my status, which does make sense, but people were even being penalized for sleeping at night, there should be some leeway, shouldn’t there? What was I going to do when I went away for vacation to Disney World in September? What about the fact that I don’t really want to chat all the time because I have so many other things to keep me occupied not to mention the fact that I am so unbelievably shy and just hate putting myself out there in such an open forum.

So anyhow now a few more days have passed and I was checking out the latest in the Twitterverse and saw that there is another new kid in town, Indenti.ca.  Odd one, huh? Aside from not having all the birdies and being so blue, it really looks a lot like Twitter.  There is one difference, it is new. The page loads a bit slowly, but so far I’ve not heard anything about crashes or pages not loading at all. Another thing to consider is that everyone is not using it yet. It’s still in early adopter phase.

So in a matter of less than two hours, I have gone from avoiding social media because of the Plurk burnout I experienced to signing up for new services and even Twittering and Stumbling like normal.

Now although I am finally finishing up this post that I started almost a week ago, I can say that my outlook has changed in the last couple of hours. It isn’t that there is a new shiny out there to play with, because I have gone back to the old familiars that I had been ignoring for the past week or two. It’s just that this new shiny has been able to remind me why I like playing with all of these social networking sites. I may be an introvert in real life, but I do like connecting with other people and doing so online is so much easier to get the courage to talk to the popular kids. I just need to remember that no matter how pretty the next new shiny is that comes along, with all things, moderation is the key!

ShareThis

There are a ton of social news aggregators.  The most famous, of course, is Digg.  The most used at this point is probably Yahoo! Buzz.  Then there’s Reddit, Fark, and a whole slew of niche sites devoted to socially aggregating online news.

So why do we need another one?  SocialMedian is just such a service that is currently in Alpha.  I’ve been a member for awhile, and while I don’t use it every day, I use it a lot more often than I tend to use Digg or Reddit.

You see, I’m just about Dugg out.  I’ve Reddit all.  (Okay, I’ll stop with the Farking puns now).  SocialMedian, is, to me, a change from the other services.  First of all, it’s cleaner.  I like the way it looks and feels.  But that’s not the only reason I like it.

You see, on Digg and Reddit, I have to work REAL hard to get anything to the front page.  I don’t feel that way at SocialMedian.  Of course, part of that is because it’s in Alpha, so not as many people are there.  But that’s not the only reason.  You don’t have the cliques that you have on other social sites.  At least, not yet.

My favorite feature is the ability to receive emails about what is being dugg, err, “clipped”, in the categories I find interesting.  You can also create your own categories, which are called News Networks.

SocialMedian is a work in progress, and I check it out every few days to see how it progresses.  I really like the direction it is heading, and I hope that it possibly slips under the radar and gives the larger social news aggregators a run for their money.  There’s plenty of room for innovation there, and SocialMedian might be just the people to do that.

ShareThis

And that, in a nutshell, is Twitter.  It’s the shiny new car that just shuts down whenever it’s carrying too much of a load.  So why do users put up with it?  What is it about Twitter that prevents people from trading up for the van or the jet plane, or in this case, competing services like Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk and Kwippy?  Would these same people put up with similar behavior from a store, an airline, a doctor,  or even more to the point, an email or IM service?  The answer is, of course, no.  So why do they put up with it at Twitter.com?

While I think there are probably a lot of reasons, I think there is one reason that just keeps people coming back:  Twitter is where the community is.  Sure, Pownce works better (and allows you to attach files), Plurk has that cool timeline and lets you comment on “plurks”, and kwippy looks nice (and also lets you comment on “kwips”.)  But no one is there.  See, everyone is afraid to make the jump entirely away from Twitter, because they’ve built up relationships there.  Leaving Twitter would be like graduating from a really cool high school and not everyone gets to go to the same college.

I really want to graduate from Twitter.  But I can’t.  I can’t leave my friends behind.  When I lost internet for a few days, it was Twitter that was chief on my mind.  Whenever I got access to WiFi, I tweeted.  It’s not because it’s addictive (though it seems to have a slightly addictive element to it).  It’s because it reminds me of something from long ago:  the communities that used to exist on Usenet and IRC.  Those have largely vanished (even though both services are still used, the sense of community is long gone.)

I’ve heard Twitter called “The internet’s water-cooler” (and I’m not sure if it was Cali Lewis or her husband, Neal Campbell that I first heard say it.  Sorry guys), and Twitter does have that feel to it.  I care about what happens to people that I follow on Twitter, and I care about what happens to Twitter.  I have accounts on most of the other microblogging services, and I’ve dabbled there, but I always return to Twitter.  The others don’t feel at all like the water cooler.  They feel almost cold.  Twitter is alive.  Yes, it crashes constantly and that annoys me to no end.  Almost daily I’m saying “I am done with Twitter.”  But obviously, Twitter isn’t done with me.  And somehow, I’m okay with that.

ShareThis

We read daily about how social networking is something that companies large and small need to be actively pursuing because it is where the consumers can be found. After an experience that I have had with a fellow social networker over the past two days, I am suddenly wondering if social networking by consumers is as popular as I am hearing.

Yes, sites like Facebook and MySpace are both common sites among the average social networker (especially high school and college students), but how many of your every day friends and family who are not somehow involved in social media marketing are really involved in sites such as FriendFeed, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc? I’m going to guess not too many. In fact, I can only think of two contacts that I have that are involved in social networking and not involved in social marketing.

I am active enough in social networking sites that I have made the acquaintance of several social media marketers and SEO gurus. I look to these experienced marketers to bounce ideas off of involving this blog and I enjoy sharing things and joking around with them as much as I do with my non marketing friends.

I do read about social marketing and have even been known to give my two cents from the viewpoint of a consumer. However, in no way, shape, or form am I a marketer. I have two blogs, including this one that is about being social on the web, but I honestly do not care if I have one reader or one million. If either of my blogs become popular that will mean more work for me and I am already working a full time job and have other interests outside of social networking. I live paycheck to paycheck to make sure I have internet access, I can’t afford for high bandwidth to become an issue, so honestly I hope that none of the sites I own and play with get very popular.

So I’m just wondering are there other people out there doing this just for fun? If so, I’d really love to hear from you, please leave a comment! And for you marketers out there, what do you think about this?

ShareThis

Additionally, I have three people who have agreed to help me with blogging!  We have picked a theme, although I’m waiting to surprise those who were helping me narrow down the theme choices.

Our topic, of course, will be social media, social networking, personal branding, and the like.  Knowing that I am only good for one post every week or two, I cannot expect more from the others, so if there is anyone else who might be interested in participating in this new blogging adventure, please let me know through the comments, via Twitter, via StumbleUpon, or email!

Before I wrap this up, I want to give a very special thanks to everyone doing so much to help me with this project:  dOgBoi who came up with the idea and has agreed to be a blogger, GemStar38 and Murple who have also agreed to be bloggers, and Timbury who is helping out with the hosting!

ShareThis