I’ve decided to put the social media piece I was working on out for publication. So instead of the detailed thinking, here’s a bloglite version with some added attitude
Use Twitter?
Have a blog?
Think you’re a cool user of social media?
You’d better think again, because the probability is you’re likely to be very wrong.
The one facet of Web2.0 technology that makes social media what it is – what it was designed for – is commenting.
The social media platform was, most emphatically, not designed for ‘ease of opinionated publishing’ or ‘keeping an online diary’.
Reading someone’s blog or twitter stream in isolation (without commenting) is not interaction, in precisely the same way that just reading the newspaper is also not interaction.
I don’t believe that the ever-increasing deployment of Reader technology has made us lazy and acted as a barrier to being social.
But I do believe that people have tended to become so wrapped up in their own little worlds, that the social media platforms are gradually becoming broadcast tools, not interaction tools.
The completely bonkers trend of following slebs on Twitter – slebs who, let’s face it aren’t going to follow you back – is an excellent case in point.
You are likely to get as much social interaction with a sleb via Twitter if you shouted at them when they appear on your television.
Bonkers, as I’ve said.
So where I’m going with this – admittedly truncated – thought is that reading is good, but it is not the whole.
You need to comment.
You need to talk.
And listen.
You need to engage.
That is what social media is about.
That is, in a word, social.
And if you can’t be arsed?
You’re not being very social, are you?
Why would I bother commenting? Oh. Wait…
OK, humour aside, the art of great commenting is to be opinionated yourself. When opinions meet, mutual respect is gained. When they clash, a debate is born. At least on good blogs (seen any around here?) a debate is born. Get the wrong sort of people involved and flame wars begin.
A thought just crossed my mind. Democracy was supposed to be like social networking – but ended up like flame wars.
I guess there’s always the risk of over-doing the commenting too. But I just have to add a thought. What we need is the reverse of RSS. RSS disseminates the information/opinion. We need a standardised mechanism to both include dependent commenting AND to add comments. I’d like to call it RCC. Really Cool Commenting.
Oooooh Brennig you know how to start an argument! As one of Pyra Lab’s original Blogger babes and WordPress fiddlers I thought the whole reason d’etre was, as the strapline for WordPress says “publish yourself”. Even the name is leaning towards the idea of online publishing: word…press.
Even Twitter, flaky sex kitten of Web 2.0 started with the phrase “What are you doing” and co-founder Jack Dorsey described it as “…a short burst of inconsequential information”.
Ironically I think that Twitter in particular has become *more* like a non real-time chat platform for some people whereas I just want to tell the world important things like “my parrot just made a sound like a telephone…lol”.
I do like to start a discussion that makes people look at things with a fresh gaze, yes 🙂
Your point is fair, young Ian, but I feel I need to point out that WordPress is a comparative newbie on the blogging scene. WordPress.com began hosting blogs in 2004/5, and the initial release of the WordPress CMS was 2003. Blogger, however, was launched mid/late 1999.
However, the whole Raison d’être behind these tools (never mind what their marketing slogans may be or have been) is the multi-layered product we know as ‘social media’. I contend that without interaction, blogging is as social as picking up a copy of The Sun.
I realise that some – not either of you, obv – might be unhappy with the frame of definition that social media was constructed with, and might wish to shy away from all that dreary effort of having to get involved, and that’s what is behind my post.
I believe we have become lazy. We used to build a network of friends in our blogroll. That network would be built through finding a blogger who did something that we liked. And commenting.
Those who really know me in the blogging world would nod when I describe myself as a serial commenter. It might take me a little while to get to a post, but I will get there and, far more often than not, will leave a comment.
What I seem to be noticing is a trend that the same small number of people seem to be commenting on the blogs in my sidebar and in my Reader.
And I think that’s a loss. I don’t know if this apparent contraction is due to apathy or even some higher order of thinking, such as, ‘Oh, they know I read their blog. I don’t need to say anything’.
It is almost as if the whole blogging thing has become too easy; release a post and wait for the comments. But what comments?
This OP was inspired because I have visited two well-read blogs in the last 72 hours. Both of the authors are going through traumatic times, yet – despite being well-read – the cupboard of expected comments was truly bare. On one blog there is one comment by another reader and one from me, whilst on the other blog there is just my comment.
And I think that’s sad. I feel the ‘social’ aspect of ‘social networking’ needs to be protected otherwise it just becomes a ‘network of interests’. And when that happens it’s far too easy to say ‘I’m not interested…’
I’m not alone in noticing this unwelcome shift:. Yes, this link is to a marketing-based blog, but the sentiments the writer expresses are no less valid for that: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2010/09/26/social-media-and-the-big-conversation-fail/
I think Facebook has a lot to answer for when it comes to the decline of blogging…it replaced blogs in so many ways; largely better ways. I remember the Halcyon days of 20Six when everyone was very chatty…those days are well and truly gone.
p.s You do not get any extra points for being able to type the accented “e” – you’re lucky I can type at all after I cut the top off of my finger yesterday whilst peeling horseradish. 😉
Hi Brennig! I’m over here, waving strenuously from France. Wotcha! Hi! Bonjour and all that bollocks. I stopped commenting widely when it became too fecking difficult on a technical basis – but I shall be resuming my stalker-like tendencies in the Spring – when we are ASSURED that broadband is coming. I love commenting and interacting with people – much better than sheep.
Mya x
I’m guilty of over-interacting and am now restricted by: being given a shit loan phone from O2, a collapse of Twitter at work, and generally getting over the initial year long buzz of making friends online and having virtual sex with them.
It can’t compare to Coke – which is the real thing.
Love you.
Ax
I’m guilty as charged for rarely interacting/commenting on others blogs, even though I do read them. But at the same time don’t always feel the need to comment on things my friends tell me either – even though I know what’s going on.
However I’d never label myself as ‘a user of social media’. I post nonsense on a blog and twitter. People don’t always need to interact on blogs, I never started mine with the thought of interaction or to be social, it was an outlet and gave me something to do (though I probably wouldn’t have kept it going this long if there were no comments either). The social side of it developed over time. Maybe others aren’t there for the social bit….
I can’t be arsed to comment.
Or interact.
Social Media is just another way to force people upon me.
Oh? So because I’m commenting now, here, does that mean I’m not an antisocial people-hater?
Maybe ‘masochistic people-hater’ is more suitable since I keep coming back to blogs, Twitter, Facebook to torture myself with other people’s lives…
(I love it all really…I’m just not creative enough to use it correctly…)
Ian, sorry about the finger. One *peels* horseradish? Wow. Anyway, I remember 20Six too. Ahhhh… Facebook has many things to answer for. Let’s blame it for me spilling my tea in the kitchen yesterday. That feels better already! 🙂
Mya, I see you waving, you half-baked anglo-French numpty. Daughter has broadband in her little hovel in the Sierra Nevada mountains. That amazes me more than an amazing thing. And anyway. I love you almost as much as I love Ash. Really. But are you sure that people are better than sheep. Sure?
Ash. I love you too. I’m more of a Dr Pepper kind of guy. But it screws up your nose getting the neck of the bottle in there.
Cyn, You’re right of course. Some peeps started a blog for cathartic reasons. And that’s fine – and indeed why I started my original and now long-dead blog over at fictionrus.blogspot.com (RIP). But I have an issue with some people who built up their little network and now don’t service their network – instead it’s become one-way traffic.
Soph, I think you’re too hard on yourself. As ever. I love you. I love Ash too, but I love you more because you let me do secret things in the bedroom. Ash doesn’t. 🙂