Is social networking counter-productive? The answer must surely be yes. Patiently watching Twitter for replies to your Tweets will surely prevent you from doing work, or browsing Facebook will prevent you from preparing a report.
So why do people keep turning to social networking? I imagine for the simple reason it is fun. I have resisted joining MySpace or Facebook so I do not get addicted to them preventing me from doing work, and so MySpace doesn’t deform my HTML, but I must say I get sucked into Twitter (but I try to only occasionally check it).
I am sure I will have plenty of commenters telling me how to productively use social networking for the purposes of actually networking and advertising and I have to say well done to them. I still think it’s impractical for the average person to regularly update a site like Twitter and only people who literally work on the Internet or (in the case of 10 Downing Street) are hired to update Twitter have the necessary time to use it productively.
I even doubt having the news texted to you by the BBC through Twitter is particularly productive because you are distracted each time there’s a new headline!
Naturally, you can follow me on Twitter here or on FriendFeed if you really wish (I don’t use it).
About 2 years ago, I was fortunate enough to join 9rules, an exclusive blog network. Today, I have joined another upcoming (albeit much smaller, with a maximum of 10 members at this moment) blog network called Grand Effect.
Grand Effect is a network specifically for technology bloggers and I am joining some long-time blogfriends such as Sarah (in Tampa) and Ghacks. I look forward to becoming blogfriends of other members of the network such as eXtra for Every Publisher, WinExtra and SheGeeks, ParisLemon, The Last Podcast and Mark Evans Tech.
Even though Grand Effect already has a fairly worldwide range of writers, because Mark Evans and David of XFEP are Canadian; Martin of gHacks is in Germany (Guten Tag!); and several others are in the US, I hope to provide another European voice!
As well as being a collection of fantastic tech bloggers, Grand Effect is a great advertising opportunity for start-ups and tech companies who wish to penetrate the tech blogosphere as they could easily find themselves on several tech blogs.
I have already received a very warm from network members, so thank you!
On a sidenote, 9rules is currently having an admissions round so apply if you fancy joining!
Former fellow 9ruler Mashable has covered Grand Effect twice. (link, link)
Who Should I Follow? is a site which provides recommendations of whom you should follow on Twitter and I have to say it’s remarkably accurate.
The site is very simple to use: you input your username and it provides other users whom you can follow. It immediately suggested several 9rulers whom I forgot to add on Twitter and I proceeded to follow them.
Who Should I Follow, I expect, works on the basis of mutual friends. Naturally, this means you get the likes of Scoble and Kevin Rose many times but WSIF cleverly allows you to filter results based on geographic location and popularity (so you can avoid having Twitter superstars showing up!).
I love this site. Not only is it Ajax-powered, but it provides a fantastic service which genuinely enhances your Twitter life!
Tags: twitter, ajax, web 2.0
9rules is back, having just been redesigned and reorganised massively. Much more emphasis is now placed on members content, as opposed to notes, and I have to say it’s very well polished.
A couple of years ago, 9rules introduced notes which allowed non-members to contribute to communities (eg Web). This, obviously, reduced the focus on members content and filled 9rules with far too much content leading to information overload.
Thankfully, 9rules seems to be back on the right track. 9rules itself now has very little on besides member content which is categorised into communities (which have been re-organised so they describe their member blogs more accurately). Users can select favourite communities and blogs so new content from those will be displayed when they visit the 9rules homepage. You can also subscribe to community specific RSS feeds.
9rules still wish to involve non-members so notes and the like now exist on the external Chawlk site. This is done so users are not overloaded with a mishmash of links, posts and notes! It’s also done so members do not confuse membership of 9rules with membership of (what was) 9rules’ notes.
The design is very, very clean on both Chawlk and 9rules.
Keep your eyes open for a 9rules submission round!
With the new 9rules, everyone wins: members get more exposure, non-members can still contribute to Chawlk and members get a new online den to hang out in!
Subscribe to my community?
Tags: 9rules, web 2.0, chawlk
In the UK, Which? is an organisation who provide consumer advice to consumers. I’m sure it’s still the first port of call for many British customers but I wonder how many are willing to pay the membership fee of about £7.75 a month when they have the Internet to their disposal.
There are plenty of community-driven review sites such as Ciao, DooYoo and (in the US) Epinions. These sites can give a general feel of a product, service or company but are likely to be biased because people are more likely to blog about negative experiences and blog in the first few months of ownership of that product. I also doubt the conditions products are tested in are as ’scientific’ as Which?’s.
Still, if I ever google a product name I will get dozens and dozens of high-quality results off websites who specialise in that area. Then again, on these specialist blogs and news sites, it can be difficult to identify bias.
Another issue I expect consumers will have with using the Internet for consumer advice is finding a starting point for buying a product. Because technology develops so fast, if I were to search ‘good digital camera’, I could end up with results which are a couple of years out of date! The second result on Google dates back to 2002 (’Digital camera manufacturers often give you a choice of image size, typically between… VGA and… 3.7mp’). Sites like Ciao do try to keep up to date by maintaining ‘hitlists’ of the best products in certain categories (I do not know if this accounts for time or not).
The Internet is a much better, and cheaper, resource than organisations like Which? if you know what you’re looking for but if you are absolutely clueless it’s probably a bit overwhelming. I do believe that the paid content model of Which? (you have to pay to read) will not work in the long-term online and perhaps they should begin to rely on advertisements (but that would damage their neutral point of view) or else they will reduce in size.
Disclaimer: I am a member of Ciao, DooYoo and Epinions, receiving payments off all 3 for reviews. I am also current an advertiser for Ciao. This review is written completely independently to all of these roles.
