(or "How to Piss Off Friends and Enemies Alike.")
Yesterday I found a huge resource for links with web design tips and tricks. As I am trying to brush up my skills in this area, this was interesting to me. Just before going to bed I started going through them. There were hundreds of links, so I just sorted them out, bookmarking some with Instapaper and others with Delicious. so I could go back to them later. I'd made it through about 300 of these links when I received the following direct message via Twitter:
Re: "How To Avoid Being An Ass On Twitter"... does it say anything about tweeting every website that you Digg? [hint, hint] ;-)
LOL
Turns out that every web site I bookmarked in Delicious was being sent out as an individual Tweet. ARGHHH!! Well, here is how that happened and how you can avoid doing it as well...
Recently, I have been spending quite a bit of time trying to get my head wrapped around the connectivity that is emerging between social networking sites. In theory, this has the potential of expanding one's presence on the web exponentially with very little effort. Imagine, for instance, that every time you digg a story all your friends find out about it as well, whether they are on Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.
This is where FriendFeed comes in. Once you create an account in FriendFeed, you can add your login information for other accounts, such as Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Amazon, StumbleUpon, etc. Every time you do something on one of those sites, FriendFeed records it and sends it out for your friends to see via Twitter.
This is great for most of the time when you might see one or two interesting stories, or if you bookmark a few sites a day in Delicious. But I tend to look at these things in groups - which can get understandably annoying for those subscribed to my FriendFeed. So I tweaked the settings some today, and hopefully this will fix the problem.
Your Secrets, Revealed
This brings up a very interesting situation, however. When I don't think someone else will be interested in something, I tend not to Digg it - or I think twice about bookmarking in Delicious: do I really want everyone to know I visited the world's stupidest website?
If we extend this to the rest of those enlightened enough to use Digg or Delicious or a similar service, what happens is we get a picture of another person that is filtered through the lens of what they want the rest of the world to see. In itself, this isn't a bad thing - it mimics the real world in the sense that all of us do things that embarrassed us.
But it does contribute to the overall popularity (or lack thereof) for things on Digg, and can shape the opinions we have of someone else. Over time, we can even see the phases our friends go through as they explore different topics.
So, the lesson of the day is this: if you decide to use FriendFeed (and I encourage you to do so - it is very cool), remember to turn off publishing if you are going to be bookmarking tons of links, or if you spend a lot of time digging stories. Another option would be to use Delicious for the links you don't mind everyone seeing, and another service (such as Magnolia.com) for those sites you are saving to look through later.
For those interested…
- you can see my Delicious bookmarks at http://delicious.com/thechuck2237.
- you can visit my FriendFeed page (and subscribe) at http://friendfeed.com/thechuck
- you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thechuck
- you can see what I am digging at http://digg.com/users/thechuck
…or if you prefer…
I'll be blogging more about social networking at some point in the future.
.jpg)
Posts
