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Is social bookmarking worth the trouble?

Monday, May 26th, 2008

With all of the talk of microblogging and lifestreaming of late, I wonder how the lowly old art of social bookmarking is doing.

I think this question is particularly pertinent given that FriendFeed is giving new and heightened visibility to any kind of social media activity. For example, you can use FriendFeed to monitor your friends’ social bookmarking activity that occurs on sites like Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, StumbleUpon, Furl, and Google Shared Stuff.

Seeing this activity front and center in a new way made me think about how and why we use social bookmarking. As I see it, there are four main reasons for indulging in social bookmarking.

Used to track websites for our own future use
Used to share information with our friends and social media contacts
Used to support your friends and contacts in social media to help build up your own social media profile
Used to build links back to websites for SEO purposes

The interesting thing about this is that the last three reasons are not for your own personal information tagging – they are for directing web traffic (i.e. other people) to specific websites. Although each person’s reasons for bookmarking will vary, there are plenty of reasons to bookmark for other people or for reasons other than their own information retrieval.

Therefore, when you see people bookmarking stuff in Del.icio.us, is it more likely that they are saving this information for someone other than themselves?

Bookmarking seems to be evolving from the original purpose of saving information for your own use at some later date. However, it’s still perfectly fine for its original purpose. However, how many of us really use it to its fullest potential?

I’ve researched social bookmarking on several different occasions. I looked at Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, Netvouz and Google Bookmarks, as well as StumbleUpon. Without question I use StumbleUpon more than any other bookmarking application but I rarely go back to check out the things that I’ve bookmarked, nor do I ever search through StumbleUpon by tags.

For ease of use it’s hard to beat Del.icio.us, including its toolbar. Yet it seems so spartan.

Ma.gnolia hasn’t made much of an impression on me, although I understand it has strong groups and community.

Netvouz is probably the strongest bookmarking tool of all that I’ve used, but for some reason it hasn’t “stuck” with me. I think it’s because I know that I’d have to devote some time and energy to set it up properly so that I could use it to its fullest potential. Quite frankly, I’m a little too lazy to use it properly when I could just use StumbleUpon or Del.icio.us.

In fact, I rarely ever go back to my bookmarks to check them again, relying mostly on Google searches or the favorites functionality in my web browser.

This begs the question: is tagging and bookmarking really worth the trouble for tracking your own information? I’m starting to wonder if it is.

So, I’ll turn the question over to you. Do you use social bookmarking? If so, do you regularly create bookmarks? And how often do you go back to find something that you’ve saved in a social bookmarking program?

Why not leave a comment and share your thoughts?

Tags: bookmarking, social bookmarking
Posted in bookmarking | 22 Comments »

Blogs that I read regularly

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

My blog reading habits have changed a bit lately, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse into the places that I’m spending a lot of my time:

On Topic – Social Media/Technology

Colin Walker – thoughtful observations and speculations about current events and possible directions for social media; a thinking person’s blog equal parts sociology and technology. Colin’s a great guy and a welcome commenter/guest here at Broadcasting Brain.

WinExtra – Steven Hodson “calls ‘em as he sees ‘em” and his “no BS” approach to modern technology is always insightful and refreshing, even if you disagree with him. Steven points out things that I should be checking out.

ReadWriteWeb – I don’t read Engadget, Gizmodo, Techcrunch, Techmeme, or Ars Technica regularly, although I’ll check the latter three out on occasion. RWW is the industry blog, along with a bit of Mashable, that I use to keep track of what’s going on in social media. They’ve got a great range of writers (I do have a slight bias towards Alex Iskold, but they’re all good). This is the blog where I’d absolutely love to guest post if I ever get the chance.

Alexander van Elsas – sometimes crazy-awesome thinking about technology today; always interesting. Alexander clearly pursues common themes throughout all of his writing and has certain biases (I don’t think you’ll hear the phrase “walled garden” more often on any other blog), but he’s a good thinker and discussion initiator.

How To Split An Atom – my friend Steve writes with passion and style about business and technology with a focus on the hip, interesting, and groundbreaking. He gets it and he’s a gentleman to boot.

Mathew Ingram/Work – Mathew’s own blog, not directly associated with the Toronto Globe and Mail, provides an interesting (and slightly opinionated) perspective on today’s Web technologies and related businesses. He’s got years of journalism experience from both business and technology and his opinion is worth reading.

Men With Pens – two crafty wordsmiths/creators always have a lot to share on the art and science of writing. They have one of the most amazing comments sections of any blog like I’ve ever read, where the comments take on a life of their own. I think of them as the Potters (Harry and James… get it?) or occasionally as John (James) and Paul (Harry)… do I have to explain the John and Paul reference?

Remarkablogger – Michael Martine is a rising force in the blogging world and he’s worked his butt off to get there. His “wolf pack” concept may be mutating in ways that he never expected, but nonetheless he gets it. If your business is thinking about blogging, you really need to check out his stuff.

Seth’s Blog (Seth Godin) – Seth Godin is another craftsman, mainly of ideas related to sales, marketing, customer service, innovation, and product design. He has a consistent, distinctive voice and presence and I think he has some of the best ideas in business today. Some people complain about the fact that you can’t leave comments on his blog. My response: try sending him a question by E-mail sometime. You might be surprised.

Louis Gray – I’ve recently become a fan of Louis’s work and I’m astounded by the sheer amount of research, documentation, analysis and commentary that he does. As good as his blog is, however, he’s best experienced through FriendFeed, where you can really get a handle on all of the work he does. In fact, guys like Louis Gray are the people for whom FriendFeed was designed and that the rest of us can emulate.

Problogger.net and Skelliewag.org – I lump these two blogs together because of Skellie’s association with Darren Rowse and because they cover some similar territory, but most of the good things that I’ve learned from blogging has come from studying their blogs. It’s great, great stuff, especially if you’re trying to figure out what blogging is all about. I think they’re great people, too.

Dosh Dosh – Maki is a blogging/social media juggernaut. Sometimes he sounds like a wise old man, other times he sounds like an enthusiastic school boy. Regardless, once he starts into a topic, he owns it. Period.

Social Media Explorer – maybe it makes a difference that I’ve met Jason in person but I still think he’s doing some great work in both promoting social media and trying to bring PR and communications firms into Web 2.0 and social media thinking.

Search Engine People – another personal contact here (I’ve met Jeff Quipp) but I think his team puts out some really high quality material covering a lot of angles in search marketing and social media. Jeff, Jennifer, Ruud, Tom and the whole team write great stuff.

Off Topic – entertainment value only

Rokk’s Comic Book Revolution – some of the best comic book reviews that I’ve ever read – amazing detail
and care.

The Legion Abstract – another fan site, devoted to one of my favorite comic book concepts: the Legion of Super-Heroes. Another remarkable work of love.

Entertainment Weekly – I read the reviews and analysis of both Lost and Battlestar Galactica and I’m looking forward to the same when Heroes returns to the airwaves in the fall.

I’ve probably forgotten or missed a lot of other great blogs… but these are the ones that I hit most consistently.

(Edit: I can’t believe that I forgot Chris Brogan…)

How about you? What blogs do you read regularly?

Tags: blogs
Posted in blogging | 33 Comments »

FriendFeed allows us to see the whole elephant

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Steve Rubel (yes, that Steve Rubel) posted a question in FriendFeed asking whether or not FriendFeed was the next big thing or whether people were just getting bored (with what, I’m not sure.)

I posted this reply and wanted to share it with those of you who don’t use FriendFeed:

It’s easy to forget amongst the chatter and noise that FriendFeed is quite a powerful aggregation platform. Think of the seven blind mice (or men, depending on which version you’ve read) who are all trying to describe an elephant. They can only sense one part of the elephant and so they guess differently because one feels the trunk, another the tusk, one the leg, the tail, and so on. Finally, one smart person figures out that all of these parts are connected together into an elephant and recognizes it for what it is. In a similar light, FriendFeed makes visible virtually all social media presences for a specific person and you get to see how interesting or talented they are. This sets the stage for more interesting and enjoyable conversations and learnings.

Does this make sense to you?

Edit: Steve Rubel brought the discussion over to his blog as well.

Tags: friendfeed, lifestreaming, steve rubel
Posted in lifestreaming | 8 Comments »

The necessary evil of repetition

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I sense a disturbance in the Force some new life forms

My Spider Sense blog stats and other social media sniffers are indicating that I’ve received a bit of a jump in my visitors and subscribers of late. First of all, thank you! It’s great to have new people here visiting this young but growing blog.

What do you do to accommodate both the old and new blog visitor? Do you carry on as if nothing has changed? Do you try to create new content to help the new reader? Should you try both?

In either scenario you run the risk of committing a possible sin: repeating yourself.

I loathe repetition – how about you?

Credit: Rochelle, et. al.

For many years I used to talk softly most of the time. I lacked the confidence to speak aloud in social situations, plus my voice did not naturally carry well without some assistance. I managed to overcome both of these problems, for the most part, with a lot of practice.

However, occasionally I’ll mumble my words, forcing me to repeat myself. I really, really dislike repeating myself. However, I’m trying to get over that.

People have strong feelings about repeating themselves. Some people can’t stand to say the same things over and over again (witness FAQs and resource pages), while other people could tell the same story a million times.

I’ve decided that repetition is often helpful and in some cases it’s mandatory. So, in my desire to change my way of thinking about repetition, I thought I’d share these ideas with you.

Valid and important reasons to repeat yourself (especially as a blogger)

First time readers don’t know you.
Even though you may have an About page, it doesn’t hurt to do the occasional post to help out the new reader.

Your message was too complex and too hard to understand

Sometimes we screw up the first time when we try to explain something. If you’re getting mixed or negative feedback about a blog post, try restating your point either in the comments section or as a follow-up post.

Reader was distracted and missed part of the message

You can’t always control this problem, but, on the other hand, maybe your blog is too cluttered or your formatting is off. You can always try to neaten things up.

Message didn’t stick – too boring

It might help to have an impartial or vicious person read over your posts and see if it’s interesting to the reader. Sometimes we can’t judge this very well when we’re the writer, so it helps to have a second opinion. This person can give you advice on how to grab the reader’s attention.

Message didn’t stick – irrelevant

You can try to impart information, but unless the reader actually cares about the topic, they probably won’t remember what you were trying to say.

This is bad if the information is particularly newsworthy or important. For that reason, it’s important to stay on topic within a blog. Blogging about Arctic reserve drilling might not be very important to gossip blog readers or food blog readers, as an example – at least within the context of that blog. However, eco- bloggers, political bloggers, or journalism bloggers could find that story to be very important.

If you persist on blogging off-topic, be prepared to repeat yourself if the message doesn’t get through the first time.

Sometimes we just forget

We’re all pushing our semi-evolved simian brains to the max on a daily basis with an overdose of raw data, processed information, and stimuli. This represents an aspect of the “signal vs. noise” concept:

The signal is the message that you’re trying to convey.
The noise is composed of all of the interfering pieces of information and stimuli that prevent the message from clearly registering.

What’s worse is that clear signals can be overpowered or overwritten by other urgent stuff.

I believe that is one of the biggest needs for repetition in the Web 2.0 environment (or off-line, for that matter). We are bombarded with so many images, sounds, and ideas over the course of each day that we wind up forgetting things, especially if they aren’t urgent.

Just think about blogging for a minute. You’ll remember some bloggers after one exposure to them because they are doing remarkable stuff. However, this isn’t true for most of us. We need to exposure ourselves and our ideas to you multiple times until you start to remember us.

It’s just the nature of communication: repetition is sometimes necessary. Marketers and advertisers have known this for years and it’s a growing problem, especially if you believe in Seth Godin’s ideas (and, for the most part, I do).

Accept the need to say it again, and again, and again, and…

I don’t like repeating myself any more than most other people, but I’m starting to accept that it’s required. Every now and then I’m going to repeat certain ideas and concepts on this blog. You never know which new set of eyes will start tracking your blog.

Things have to be said, then said again, and repeated as necessary.

I’ll try to make it as painless as possible.

So, what do you think? Is repetition necessary? Or should it be avoided at all costs?

Tags: blogging, repetition, writing
Posted in blogging | 12 Comments »

Social media blog post ideas for desperate people

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Image by nate steiner

Your deadline is approaching; time to write a new blog post. But… you don’t know what you’re going to write about. You feel your heart racing, sweat forms on your forehead, and your stomach begins to ache. Your mind races from thought to thought but it can’t settle on any one good blog post idea. What to do?

If you are in this unfortunate situation, try reading this post for help!

Here are 82 handy ideas or subjects, especially useful for social media bloggers, for a great blog post if you’re a bit too lazy or if you are pressed for time to come up with your own (or you can try these 10 unusual blogging ideas if you’d like a real challenge – here’s an example):

Read the newspaper and write about the front page news.
Surf the Web and find out about the day’s news. Write a post about a news story that’s popular, explaining why the news story has become popular.
Check Twitter for interesting stuff, especially events, products, people or places that a lot of people are talking about.
Complain about how Digg’s front page sucks these days (the front page is a listing of the most popular stories on Digg.com.)
Complain about how Digg’s algorithm is still broken (why and how do some stories become popular when they actually seem dumb or worthless).
Complain about all of the people who complain that Digg’s algorithm is still broken (it is what it is, work with it people!)
Complain about any other bookmarking/news service (Mixx, Delicious, StumbleUpon…)
Comment on the latest Scobleizer post (the long-running blog written by Robert Scoble).
Explain why Robert Scoble is the most important blogger ever (or Louis Gray, or someone else)
Explain why Robert Scoble is losing his influence (can a popular, well known blogger maintain their influence over the long term)?
Comment on the latest Scoble FriendFeed discussion (EDIT: this might not work so well as Robert Scoble is not using FriendFeed as much as he used to.)
Complain about Scoble when he doesn’t give you the “juice” that you deserve! (the “juice” being traffic towards your blog or website when another blogger shares that link with his or her audience).
Write a post explaining why Robert Scoble is just this guy, you know? (this is a wordplay based on a scene from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books).
Complain about Twitter.
Explain how Twitter could be so much better if a few IMPORTANT changes were made.
Write about the coolest new Twitter application that you’ve discovered.
Explain why people don’t read anymore.
Explain why people read more than ever.
Explain why people actually scan content instead of reading it.
Talk about how you or someone you know suffers from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder or some other condition).
Talk about how everyone’s attention span is shrinking.
Complain about (pick one of: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple… or pick your own subject!)
Praise (pick one of: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple… or pick your own subject!)
Rant about how the banks make too much money (or ISPs…)
Complain that taxes are too high (or some other service fee that you pay on the Web… how about mobile phone charges?)
Complain that taxes aren’t high enough and your country is going to go broke (or, alternately, how can free Web services ever stay in business?)
Explain how the economy is going into a recession… what impact will this have on your business, your hobbies, or your life?
Explain how the economy is going to pick up any day now.
Explain how the economy is better than ever (extra challenge: do it without lying).
Make fun of a well-known politician/celebrity/business leader/religious leader/blogger.
Praise a well-known politician/celebrity/business leader/religious leader/blogger.
Complain about how all of the good ideas have already been taken (or explain why it’s not a problem after all).
Define social media
Explain why everyone else has the wrong idea of what social media really is, but you’ve got it right – and why
Explain what Web 2.0 is.
Explain what Web 2.0 isn’t and why everyone else is wrong.
Explain what Web 3.0 will be.
Explain what Web 3.0 won’t be and why everyone else is wrong.
Explain why Web x.x is a stupid, stupid way to classify Web technology.
Take a common noun or verb, add x.x to it, and explain what it really means.
Find an unknown blogger and sing their praises.
Complain about the A-list bloggers.
Praise the A-list bloggers.
Explain why you should really be on the A-list.
Explain why you’d never, ever want to be on the A-list.
Explain what the A-list really is.
Explain how you can make money online (or you could keep it to yourself, I suppose).
Complain about Google Adsense and how you never make any money with those ads.
Explain how you have a fool proof system to make good money with Google Adsense (but give very few details).
Complain about how Technorati authority (e.g. a blog ranking system) is really, really broken.
Defend the merits of Technorati authority and how it should have more importance than it does at the moment.
Complain that (insert blogger here) isn’t giving “link juice” like they should be (see also idea 12).
Complain about how people are bugging you to link to them.
Explain how the music industry is doing just swell in the digital era.
Show the world how and why the music industry is dying a painful death.
Defend Torrents and other file sharing services (note: many of them aren’t really legal).
Explain how it is so obvious that “free” is the killer business model.
Complain about how people should be paying you for your creative work.
Complain about spam.
Complain about all of the social media “noise” that you have to deal with!
Explain why “noise” and comment dispersion aren’t bad things.
Explain why comment dispersion and dispersed conversations will kill your blog.
Rail against injustice of some kind.
Rail against censorship.
Complain that some @ssholes shouldn’t be allowed to blog.
Eviscerate someone who’s been talking trash about you or your buds.
Tell the world why WordPress is the best blogging platform.
Complain about “echo” in the blogosphere
Complain about websites and companies that enforce the “walled garden” approach.
Explain to your readers why it is EXTREMELY important to write your posts in advance.
Give advice on creating and launching the perfect meme.
Complain about the use of memes and how they are a waste of time.
Complain about how you get pitched by too many people and they don’t do it properly.
Complain about how professional sports suck all around.
Complain about how no one understands (someone or something else other than you)
Complain about how no one listens to you.
Explain your fascination with superstition, particularly numbers.
Debunk superstition and myths because it’s all dumb.
Explain with enthusiasm all of the great blog post ideas that you have.
Complain that you don’t have any good ideas for blog posts (or read this post that you are reading right now).
Complain that you don’t have enough time to write the good posts that you really want to write.
Write a post listing a bunch of different posts that you could write.

This list is a combination of serious and silly ideas and hopefully you’ll find something in there to help you with your blogging dilemma. Feel free to try them out – I’ve written this list of blog ideas to help people like you and me. If you do try one of these ideas on your blog, please consider linking back to this post.

Good luck and hang in there!

Another great idea generation resource: Playful idea generation techniques to create with imagination

And if you’re looking for more great ideas, why not subscribe and never miss a post?

Tags: blog ideas, blog post ideas, blogging
Posted in blogging | 63 Comments »