Blogging vs. Social Networking
I've been posting to my blog far less frequently than ever before, in the entire history of this blog. Why is that? I'm still busy doing stuff. I'm still active in all the same places. The only shift lately is that I've also been much more active in social networking sites, specifically Twitter and Facebook.
Now, both Twitter and Facebook are essentially social networking systems. They are about forming and building connections between people, rather than publishing content. So, that shouldn't have an impact on my posts here.
The only thing I can think of is some kind of defusing effect that activity on social networking sites may have – I post there, and it satisfies the social component of posting here. Posting here doesn't affect posting there.
So, I'm starting to think about the relationship between social networking and blogging. They're definitely related, partially overlapping activities, but they also have their own subtle difference. Blogging is (for me) about personal knowledge management. Capturing the content and context of what I'm doing. Social networking is about context more than anything. Which looks at first blush to be purely banality. And yet, it affects me on a deeper level.
I was in Vancouver for an "eCOP" pathfinding meeting, and found that I flipped open the MacBookPro during breaks. What did I check first? It wasn't email. It wasn't my blog (or blog stats, or blog referrals). It was Twitter. I felt more connected to my distributed community of edubloggers (and others) because they're always there with me, no matter where I am. That's powerful stuff. Now, how to better make sense of that? Or does making sense of it suck the soul out of it?�
Interesting how the Twitter world of @Name is beginning to show up in new locations … just check this thread. Twitter has already changed the way communities connect, now it appears to be influencing how we create conversations within our other spaces. There is something interesting in all this.
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one satisfies your hardwired need to herd, the other to be an individual. no doubt the strength of each ebbs and flows in some natural rhythm.
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@davidicus: nice, concise distinction. we’re all individuals, just like everyone else.
@cole – I’m definitely starting to think of Twitter as the community glue. Especially after following your suggestion of thinking of Twitter from an organizational standpoint, as opposed to narcissistic navel-gazing. I’m definitely feeling more closely connected to the people in my online community, largely because of the ephemeral and social Twitter channel.
@graham: I’m struggling with finding the right balance of number of Twitter-friends. Too many, and Twitter becomes too noisy. Too few, and it’s like an empty room. I’m avoiding adding everyone I know online because that would just become too unwieldy to follow.
@rachel: good point. making sense doesn’t have to suck the soul out of it, but it feels like it’s hard to define why/how it works at the moment, so I’m cool with just going with it.
@jeffrey: overload is a definite risk. Ideally, we’d all be using OpenID or the like for a single identity across all services. I gave a presentation today, and was showing Flickr, del.icio.us, Google Docs and a couple others. I had to remember usernames and passwords on the fly. Very hard to do. There has to be a better way. As for how I handle overload, I’d guess only partially successfully. I don’t sit in front of the computer 24 hours a day, but it is often nearby, and I catch myself “checking in” more often than my wife would like. I’ll often just close the lid and force myself to ignore it all, though. It’s not like it goes anywhere…
@kiran: convergence is happening now – posting updates to twitter to notify of new blog posts, etc… I find that gets a bit too noisy, though. There’s a zen thing going on. Blogs want to be blog. Flickr wants to be Flickr. Twitter wants to tweet. Merging them all into a duct-taped hydra may make the experience more awkward than it needs to be. Or it might solve the identity problem. Not sure…
I like Twitter and blogging as well, and while I have only recently started doing more with Flickr while not much at all with Facebook, . . . phewwwww. The multitasking and constant feeling of needing to “be on” is very tiring. I like nothing more than keeping up with what is happening in the edublogging and tech and academic spheres, but it is hard while also working full-time and having a family and doing laundry, eating, trying to work out, reading all those magazines that come, writing for conferences, typing here, and the like.
I am beginning to think more about the postmodern effects of information overload. When is enough enough or not enough? While I think the tools are getting better, there are also getting to be more of them doing even cooler things, which somehow leaves me here at 12:48 am with still more to do before I sleep. Ironically, the really like all this, though I have never felt so pulled in so many directions.
Is anybody else struggling with this? D’Arcy, how do you handle this?
I agree with the distinction between social networking and publishing that you’ve established.
However, it is my belief that eventually publishing and social networking will converge. After all, content sharing and publishing are no fun at all if there is no audience – or, in other words, if the “social” element intrinsic in them is non-existent.
And, how long will people juggle multiple sites, user_ids, passwords, media, etc. to “socially” share, publish, network,…without finding the “and constant feeling of needing to “be on” very tiring” (to quote Jeffrey Keefer).
Disclosure: I am the co-founder of Cylive (http://www.cylive.com) – a “social media publishing and content management” platform.
Hey, D’Arcy, you haven’t even added me as your friend yet! You’re right, Twitter is a good place to check – maybe because it doesn’t take forever to read.
Making sense of it will come with time … I could tell you how I make sense of it all, but that would either ruin the discovery process for you or be altogether wrong to you. I’m finding myself feeling more comfortable in the way I am taking advantage of the the social web — I am now lumping blogs, twitter, flickr, and all the other places I contribute to in the same space … I hang out in the FB for different reasons, but articulating what those reasons are is difficult. Same goes for Flickr … my current issue is not finding time to write and keep up on the Twitter side of the house as much I am having a harder time getting through my feeds. That is what is changing for me — I have less time (or energy) to read as much as I was. That worries me a bit. I am only able to catch up on my RSS reading about every other day. The only blog posts I am reading in the moment are the ones I am notified about via my Twitter network.
Strange how all this is starting to come together. Is Twitter glue for your personal community?
I definitely think that sensemaking doesn’t suck the soul out of it. Sensemaking is what we humans do, all the time, consciously or not; just because something makes sense doesn’t mean it isn’t fun or spontaneous or useful. It can be all that at once. Plus, it’s part of the getting-to-know-you process that we all seem to be going through with Twitter right now: what’s it like? what does it like for breakfast? does it snore? We want to find out!
Like you I find that Twitter gives me a sense of being around people. Unlike an office, I get to actually pick the people I want to Twitter around, which I think is cool.