My Social Graph
I’ve been really thinking about my online profile and the links I have. It’s intriguing to play with the Google Social Graph API even though it’s only useful if you’re trying to build a social app (which – well – everyone is).
I’ve also looked at lots of tips on blogging, especially a recent post from Chris Brogan on Ten Secrets to Better Blogging. I’ve only just started blogging recently, but I know I’m being a little haphazard about it. I’m probably not even following it for this blog.
I’ve also been looking into my social networks and who I follow and who follows me. I love social networks and I love interacting with them. Twitter and Friendfeed are where I get a lot of information from. The thing is for some reason I constantly feel under pressure to make a difference to people’s lives through my interaction. Twitter is slightly different, but… why can’t I just be me? Am I being me or not?
Friending is a currency
Links were the currency of the early noughties, and now friending has become the major currency we’re all trying to achieve. Things like XFN and microformats have sprung up to help us connect with each other and Google is obliging so that we can get at that information. So, now it’s not just the HTML links we have pointing to our content, it’s also the virtual connections between me and somebody that we have on the web that matters.
So, it’s becoming all about getting “as many friends as possible”. Having 100,000 friends on MySpace wasn’t (and still isn’t) impossible, but calling them friends is quite blatantly wrong – at least, if you’re primary use of the web is as a businessman. It smacks more of a marketing strategy and something (shock horror) viral and insipid than of a social network.
Being in Business
Being in business, I am attempting to make money (doesn’t have to be a lot, just enough). In some ways, I find that it’s odd mixing my online business activities and the idea of “friending” with my business. It makes it all the more personal, and less about business.
In some ways, my online profile is me and it’s separate from my business. That separation is blurred now, with LinkedIn and others who force me to portray myself in terms of business. Facebook is different in that it allows me to be me and gives me a semblance of control over who and what people see of me, and it’s much more personal.
The funny thing is that the people that make a lot of money out of the social networks are the network owners, the people who run the things. Now, in an equivalent of a dot-com boomtime, we’re in a social-network boomtime, where the VC money is going into things that are about “building communities” around a topic.
Who Am I?
So I come back to my original question. Who am I? Am I the businessman on LinkedIn or am I the friendly guy on Facebook? Am I the stream of random thoughts on Twitter or am I the stream of life information on Friendfeed.
One things for sure, I don’t think any of these things mean that anybody else can truly know who I am. The funny thing is, I’m not sure that I always know either. Maybe the interactions on social networks are part of what shape me?
What do you think?
10 comments
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July 10, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Chris Shouse
Very interesting questions made me stop and think. Also friending is a wonderful thing but do they really mean it? Or is friending just another opportunity to network what ever flavor you are trying that week?
July 10, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Jon Moss
I ask myself the same questions constantly. Set up LinkedIn for strictly business, and thought Facebook would just be a personal affair. However, the lines are blurring more and more.
Was it Brogan or Jantsch who recently said that Social Media takes you wide, but marketing takes you deep, and that it’s important not to confuse the two. There is so much going on that I recently set up a private account on FriendFeed in order to keep track of it all myself.
Can’t say that it’s resulting in more business, but there is a sense of cascading that may turn into a crescendo. Who can tell at this point?
July 10, 2008 at 5:06 pm
padajo
Interesting. The more I think about this, the more there is a blurring of lines.
There was also a twitter conversation that was pertinent to this about what you should call a person who friends you but you don’t friend back. The poster had said “stalker” but I suggested “fan”. I think that’s better than “follower”.
Also, Jon, I reckon that marketing is more about engagement and social media is part of that engagement. I think you can’t divide social media from marketing.
July 10, 2008 at 10:15 pm
lifestartsnow
that’s why German is such a beautiful language. we have different words for different levels of “friendship”. people use them and no one is offended if they are not in the “inner circle”.
we also have the “du” and “Sie” which distinguishes more than the English “you” as the usage implies more distance, hierarchy and respect
franzi
July 11, 2008 at 11:53 am
padajo
@lifestartsnow too true.
English is touted as the major world language and yet it’s so clunky at times.
February 17, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Reassessing My Online Profile - Part 2 « Padajo
[…] February 17, 2009 in business, communities, entrepreneurship, thoughts | Tags: twitter, business, startup, blogging, consultancy, persona, profile, work, start-up, where now?, crowdsource Read this first: Reassessing My Online Profile […]
September 18, 2009 at 10:14 am
Reassessing My Online Profile Part 3 « Padajo
[…] Reassessing my online profile:https://padajo.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/who-am-i/ […]
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