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Maybe it's just me, but I have observed that the main focus on social networking websites appears to be going more and more in the direction of sharing everything with everybody. These websites want us to believe that our friends care about the latest "make money online" trend, and that our family wants to know about that hot date we had last night. They assure us that the more information that we post, the more subscribers we'll collect and the more accepted we will become.
So what’s wrong with that? Personally, I have accounts with two of the biggest social networking websites, as well as a few others. I log into at least those two each morning. My “book” wall usually has about 160 new posts since I last visited, and my “little blue bird” site has something like double that many. While I would like to check and see what a certain segment of my contact list is up to, how do I even peruse that many posts to find the ones that interest me? I guess I could start drinking my morning coffee from a bigger cup…
It’s not like I have a ton of contacts, mind you. When compared to some people that have many hundreds of contacts on their list, mine is quite small. I have found some contacts that I would like to add to my list, but I frequently decide not to. The last thing I wish to do is add to the overwhelming noise that my grandfather used to call “raucous cacophony”.
The other problem is that my friends do not really care about my newest blog post on the benefits of micro-niche advertising, and my coworkers do not really need to hear about how Jason ended the evening with a lampshade on his head. As a matter of fact, each post that I send out will wind up on the wall of those who care about the topic and people that do not. The more ”noise” I introduce to a segment of my contacts, the fewer of my posts to those people will get read.
This experience is on no account uncommon. If you think that having more contacts gets more of your posts read, statistically, it’s the opposite. The more contacts you have, the more people will simply not care about what you are posting. That seems counter productive to me.
How about your “bio” page? Have you found yourself wanting to put something there that your friends will see, but chose not to because you don’t want EVERYBODY to see it? I would love to have different bios for various segments of my contacts. I refuse, on the other hand, to open numerous accounts for different contact groups. That just seems like too much work, but I know many who have done just that.
So what do I propose? Imagin if I had all of my contacts categorized for me, with a different “wall” for each category? I could choose my “friends” wall and just see the posts by my friends. I can post to my “friends” wall and only those people will see it. I could even do a search for keyword phrases and have a list of friends pop up who match that keyword and instantly post to all or some of them. Each category would have its own bio associated with it, so only my friends could see my “friends” bio, and only my coworkers could see my “coworkers” bio. All my friends could see the photographs of me being drunk and goofy, without being concerned about what my coworkers might think.
I think the biggest advantage is that my contacts know that when they see a post from me, it is something that may be of interest to them. I may help organize a last minute soiree with my friends, or gossip with my coworkers about office politics, and the messages are going to be much more likely to be read.
What I am in need of is a kind of a “buzz conduit”. I would like something designed to direct the buzz to the folks I want, and arrange everybody’s buzz for me to read in a way that I see fit. I want to share things with people without sacrificing my privacy.
Although it appears that the web 2.0 giants are not going to do anything akin to this any time soon, there is a site launching that will. It is going to enable you, me, and everybody else that wishes to to have their very own buzz conduit. It is going to be called buzzduit.com, and it’s being developed as we speak.
Go to buzzduit.com or check out their blog if you want to know the second it is ready to launch.
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