Friday, February 12, 2010

Reaching The Social Media Breaking Point, How Much is Too Much?

Google recently announced Google Buzz , what PC World describes as “a social media sharing service built into your Gmail window. Buzz will let you share photos, links, videos, and status updates through your Gmail inbox or your mobile device's Web browser.” PC World also highlighted a whole host of privacy concerns with Google Buzz.

Maybe it’s me, but I am not sure how many more different ways of keeping in touch with people that I can handle. I grudgingly set up Facebook accounts under my real name and for some of my blogs. After resisting Twitter at first, I set up Twitter accounts and found that - being a person who like to get information in short bites - I actually have come to like Twitter quite a bit; Facebook, not so much. Besides maintaining my 7 blogs and two Twitter accounts, I don’t think I want to have one more place where I have to input information. Time is precious to everyone these days, and who wants to have to follow people in several different places?

So, take no offense if you want to “friend” me on Facebook and I decline, or if you follow me on Google Buzz and I don’t follow back, or if you want to be my friend on YouTube and I ignore you, or if you try to connect with me on Linked In and I really don’t know who the heck you are that I don’t wish to connect, and so on. It’s not personal, it’s just that in order to stay focused on providing good content on my blogs, I’ve decided to limit the amount of “socializing” that I do through social media sites. I’m picking an choosing on where I decide to connect with people in order to make sure that when I DO have something to say, that it means something or provides value to somebody, and doesn’t simply get lost in a flood of minutia.

So please continue to follow my blogs either through Blogger and Twitter. I will be on Google Buzz just because my Blogger posts go there automatically, but it is highly unlikely that I will post separate “buzz” topics there. My time is valuable, and I am sure yours is too, and I don’t want to readers feel the need to follow me in too many places. At some point, everyone will reach the on-line social media limit, and begin to wonder how much on-line social media is too much? Who knows, maybe someday people will go back to actually talking real time with each other. If so, I'm sure someone will send a tweet to tell us about it.



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