Ok, so you know how last week I said that I was spending way too much time joining, profiling, friending, surfing and searching for lost passwords on the plethora of buzzing social nets on the www? And how I was gonna start to take control of my iLife by chucking out the social nets I didn’t think were useful/cool/interesting/informative and committing my time to more useful pursuits?
Yeah. Well. After one week I have been about thiiiis successful:
AKA: Not. So. Much.
(Aside: Remember how Xander used to say that all the time? Sometimes I miss the Scoobies so much it hurts).
I guess it’s my rebellious nature, but after making that “resolution”, the temptation for joining new social nets was even greater. And my delight in breaking the rules, resulted in the following:
So far the thing that’s annoyed me the most is that Mashable, StumbleUpon, and Digg are all incompatible with Safari? What gives? I had to download Firefox again just to complete my profile. This does not bode well for these nets as I am a Safari only user. And although I love the beautifully designed FF logo and the ease of the delicious plug-in I’m just feel more, well, “me” when I use Safari. And let’s not downplay the importance of feeling comfortable with your browser. I mean if you can’t be yourself with your browser, then how can you really be legit with your IM client?
I also got avatar friendly with the following blogging communities:
Twenty Something Bloggers
BlogCatalog
Bloglog
If you have any valid reasons for me to dump any of these or the nets on my sidebar i.e. Jaiku totally blows OR Pownce artificially inseminated me with evil alien spawn OR my ex-boyfriend stalked me on Facebook (all true by the way… mostly).
**Please help me. I have a problem. Perhaps someone should intervene and take temporary legal control over my social net affairs and assets.
Duane Storey
February 3, 2008 at 4:18 AMI think there are support groups for that. Or at least, beers to help with the pain.
Karen Halls
February 3, 2008 at 4:22 AMI found your site on google blog search and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. Just added your RSS feed to my feed reader. Look forward to reading more from you.
Karen Halls
xen ix
February 3, 2008 at 5:19 AMIn short from what I wrote to you on Pownce.
Why do you sign up for all these services? Ask yourself, do I really need them?
James
February 3, 2008 at 6:41 AMI think you need to pick your favourites and dump the rest. If you don’t do that then you’ll never really enjoy any of them to the full. Surely you need one music site, one bookmarking site, one blogging site etc etc.
Christina
February 3, 2008 at 11:07 AMI say enjoy them all until you get bored and move onto other sites/pursuits/obsessions. That’s what I do. So far, Twitter is the only thing that has really kept my interest. The others I have more for posterity. I have not been ex-boyfriend stalked on Facebook (except for an ex I actually am still on good terms with — and who in an alternate reality would probably be my husband), but my real actual stalker from high school (note to all the kids out there, if you are 14/15 and you meet a guy at the library, don’t go on a date with him — he will continue to stalk you for the next ten years. *shudder*) DID find me on MySpace last year, tried to social engineer a conversation and once I realized he was the same guy that stalked me all through high school, sent people to follow me at my job at the mall, and was originally in Georgia because at age 14, he tried to kill his father in California (I found out that part AFTER our first and only date, seeing Excess Baggage at the movie theater at the very beginning of 9th grade) and would probably still be trying to call me collect at my parent’s house (as he last did my freshmen year of college – where I told him in no uncertain terms where to go), had they not moved into a new house and changed numbers) and I promptly ended the conversation, after refreshing his memory of his psychotic behavior. Honestly, even more than the other grossness, that’s probably what killed MySpace for me — as that was a year ago and I still haven’t really been back on (though I never was active).
So until you get stalked or bored, I say enjoy them all.
Oh – and if you want the best of both worlds in regards to Safari/Firefox — Camino. I wasn’t fond of it back in August, but I’ve given it a shot again and it’s pretty great. Firefox’s engine with Safari’s Mac-ness.
crunchy carpets
February 3, 2008 at 6:29 PMCheck out the Buffy comics written by Mr. Whedon for a fix…it is just like old times.
Doug
February 3, 2008 at 6:32 PMLisa, regarding del.icious: you can have your cake and eat it too. I’ve written a del.icio.us plug-in for Safari very similar to the plug-in for Firefox. You can download it at http://delicioussafari.com. You can also read a review by Ars Technica here: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/01/28/delicioussafari-merges-del-icio-us-and-safari-finally.
Mostly Lisa
February 4, 2008 at 4:28 AMMy friends from Pownce have their say:
xen ix said: Why should you stay? That is something you know better than us. Of course, I can tell you why I’m using Pownce over MySpace and Facebook, which seems to be the biggest ones (which I still don’t understand why).
For me Pownce is the social network site I can respect. It asked me to write a username, a password and an email. All the following information is up to me to add if I want to. For me, that’s how it should be.
I was part of Facebook for 5min. FB is probably a nice site, if you are unable to pick up the phone, write an email and think that just because you keep in touch with old friends and class mates that you are social. And FB is also nice if you want to give away all your personal information to a company and let yourself be exposed to the world.
MySpace I have never signed up for and never will. I just hate it. I’ve been having design as a hobby for at least 10 years now, and MySpace from a designers point of view is like looking at web sites from the early internet days when 12 year old kids found out about Frontpage.
My point is that I feel Pownce to be more personal and even more focused on sincere socialising. I have met a lot of great people on Pownce. One person I’ve met in person and another I might even meet later on.
And as a blogger I like how it functions as a micro-blog.
I think the most important thing you should think about before signing up to new services is, why should I do it, do I need it and will I ever use it?
Steven G said: Pownce is just a better way to interact, and if you incorporate public pownce posts into a Blog your subscribers still get to see what you’re up to when you update both… but I mean if you’re a part of to many social networks, twitter, jaiku, facebook, myspace, youtube etc, why did you need to join Pownce in the first place?
I joined because I previously was not really a part of any other network, besides Facebook and Pownce looked real promising in many aspects, don’t forget it was just publicly released alot more is to come in terms of useability. Pownce can be what you want it to be, personal or bare bones type stuff…
Asking us why you should stay is kind of weird, because thats up to your needs, what you want out of these Social Networks. :P
Dennis Bjørn Petersen said: Do you have the same doubt with twitter? I tend to compare pownce with twitter. I know they aren’t the same, but if you should chose, which ones gives you the most value?
Jeff K said: Easy linking to other sites, blogs, whatever. Ability to post videos, pictures and files. Convenient links to all your other profiles makes it easy for people to find you and easy to find others. Nicer looking interface than Twitter and Pownce actually works! Import all of your Twitter friends, and start following cool people like thomashawk who posts some amazing photos, and you’ll be hooked.
Mostly Lisa
February 4, 2008 at 4:29 AM@Duane — yeah, but then i’ll need a support group for drinking too much beer and then my hips will explode and no one will love me and then i’ll need to join more social nets for self-affirmation. it’s a vicious cycle really.
@Karen — thanks for dropping by!
@James — good point. but each one is so different like chocolates. and i like chocolates. and eating many all at once. you see my dilemma?
@Christina — i see that, like me, you are a fan of the hyphen. it’s like, i wanna keep this sentence going cuz it’s just rolling off the tips of my fingers — tappetty tap tap — i should probably end this thought, but wait there’s so much in my brain that needs to be heard — hear me gentle internet folk — i have many things to say. and just like that i forget what i was saying. what was i saying? man, i feel like pudding. butterscotch. yeah, that’s the ticket.
@crunchy — i’ve seen the buffy comic in the window of the comic store on 4th. Xander’s eye patch looks funny.
@Doug — sweet. i’m totally on it. just downloaded it. will let you know what i think after using it for a day or two.
@xen — very true. i often think, “i want a MB air”, but I can’t afford a MB air, so I don’t get one. But, social nets are free to join, so it kinda feels like a deal or somebody giving me free stuff which i like. i suppose i should get a bit more critical about joining things and ask myself questions like why and stuff. maybe tomorrow. tomorrow sounds good. i’ll do it tomorrow.
@Steven G — I joined Pownce cuz Kevin Rose and Leah Culver are cool and are pretty good at identifying social networking trends. and i loved the site design. I joined right at the beginning when there weren’t many people, so it wasn’t very fun to share stuff with myself, even though some of my best discussions are held in my own head. Yeah, asking you was kinda weird. i guess that’s just how i roll.
@Dennis — i never doubt twitter. ever. well, maybe a few times. but those dark days are over. most value? definitely twitter and flickr because of the helpful, friendly, and savvy community. and i never tire of lastfm weekly stats. makes sunday so much more fun.
@Jeff K — It’s true. Pownce does rawk in the design department. i didn’t know you could add your twitter contacts. *puts on list of things to do*
ComposeAnalysis
February 4, 2008 at 4:28 PMI dont know if I can remedy any of your addictions but you have rubbed off on me some and I am now stuck on last.fm
ahhh back to my 101 assignments….
Mostly Lisa
February 4, 2008 at 5:33 PM@ComposeAnalysis — can i rub off any more of my addictions on you? how bout a 3am chocolate craving?