Sunday, May 9, 2010

Update: What Social Networks I'm on and Why

I thought it would be worth while to simply share what social media platforms I am using and how and why I am using them. Feel free to connect with me where you see fit, I have listed services in alphabetical order. I have also made this page a permanent feature on the blog as well.


blip.fm

I use blip.fm to share songs that reflect my mood, I usually quote the relevant portion of the song in the blip; and I have it set up to automatically push the blip to twitter. I tend to blip more on the weekends than the weekdays.

Feel free to follow me on blip but be advised that I do not use any of the other social features in the platform, I don't care about the badges and I don't follow any other DJs.
Delicious

I rarely save something to delicious, when I do it is with the intention of reading it later or re-using it for work or blogging purposes. All of the bookmarks there are related to knowledge management, social learning and collaborative technologies.

Facebook

While I am on Facebook I actually dislike the platform, there are slew of privacy issues and it is rife with noise (i.e. farmville). I use it primarily to vent with status updates not fit for twitter, upload photos of my children to circumvent people asking me to email them, and for its event functionality. I initially joined Facebook because I wasn't getting invited to parties anymore, that is the honest truth.

I have also created a bare bones cpsrenewal.ca "fan page" (misnomer), if you would like to receive blog posts in your Facebook feel free to add it. I didn't want to bombard 500 of my closest non public servant friends with a conversation about a sector many of them do not work in.

Empire Avenue

Empire Avenue is still in closed beta but I am really digging it. Empire Avenue is like FriendFeed with a gaming component that actually keeps you interested.

Flickr

I don't actually share any photos on Flickr but I do use compfight to search Flickr for creative commons licensed photos I can use in presentations. My galleries are organized based on the license under which the images are issued.
FriendFeed

I got into FriendFeed a while back and I find the act of creating a lifestream to be an incredibly eye opening experience. Seeing every piece of previously detached interaction on the web assembling into a single RSS feed really gives you an appreciation for the amount of content people are now creating on the web.

While it includes all my feeds I am not following many people on FriendFeed and don't intend to in the near future. Right now there simply aren't enough people in my social circle using it to make it worth my while.
Foursquare

I really think there is huge potential for social location based services, but I am starting to grow tired of Foursquare. I find its not very social, unlocking badges is a rarity and other than bragging rights with other social media types there is little value to being the mayor of anything. In short it feels like the human equivalent of marking my territory. That being said I still check in periodically and selectively push updates to twitter. I only push the update to twitter when I would've tweeted about being at the location.
Google Reader

Google Reader is my choice for feed readers, it combined with FireFox and couple of GreaseMonkey scripts makes it a pretty good experience. Despite readers built in sharing options I tend to tweet out links from my reader rather than sharing them with those who follow my reader. I would say that there is probably no real reason to follow me in Google reader.

(the same can be said about Google Buzz and Google Wave; I'm there but not using them)


Govloop


I syndicate my blog to Govloop on Mondays (I publish here on Friday) in order to reach a wider audience. I always link back to this blog in the syndication and I respond to any and all comments left on the post at Govloop.

I also use discussion groups to ask a questions, read the featured blogs and connect with other public servants all over North America (and the world).

LinkedIn


My use of Linked In is rather limited. I use it mostly as a static (but up to date) resume that points to some of my other social presences. Despite there being a number of active discussion groups on the platform I tend to either quickly skim them via daily digest emails or ignore them summarily. This is mainly a time issue, but also the fact that their digest emails don't display well on a blackberry (because they are full of HTML and I couldn't find a plain text option in the settings panel).
Prezi

I am currently a Prezi convert, it is a flash based presentation software. I build all my presentations there and recommend it to anyone who likes to build a dynamic presentation. Unfortunately there is no way to link to a gallery of my prezis so I am providing a link to one of them, look for the "more prezis by Nick Charney link".
SlideShare

I used to use SlideShare to share all my presentations but since moving to Prezi I no longer have slides and thus no need to share them. I still use it to peruse other peoples decks for inspiration or information.


Twitter


By far and away Twitter is my favorite social platform. It allows me to communicate with a number of people at once, crowdsource questions, share links and connect to others doing the same.

I also have a bot running that is auto tweeting links to a number of public servant blogs that publish relevant content. It also automatically retweets people tweeting links under the following hashtags: #cpsr #goc and #gc20.

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