Send to KindleMany (most?) people post updates to multiple Social Networks. Rather than hand-picking which networks get which updates, most of the multi-network types (nearly all?) post the identical update to all networks, simultaneously, automatically.
There are many ways to do that, including services specifically meant to accomplish that (Ping.fm, FriendFeed, etc.), or multi-protocol clients (Seesmic, TweetDeck, Digsby, HootSuite, PeopleBrowsr, etc.). In addition, networks like Facebook and Google Buzz can also pull data from various feeds (including blogs, not just other social networks).
It’s totally understandable why people do it. Who wants their incredible update to be missed by a single person. Why not create it once and have it beamed all over the planet with one click?
If your livelihood depends on getting the word out (I follow many musicians for example), then by all means, when you announce something (e.g., a new show), you want to hit every conceivable network so that you don’t miss a soul on the planet.
If you’re telling your friends what you had for lunch, making sure that Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Identi.ca, Buzz, FriendFeed, Friendster, Orkut, LinkedIn, Beebo, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc., all get that update feels a drop like overkill. 😉
Until a few minutes ago, I was guilty of this behavior as well. I have a FriendFeed account which was connected to many of my other accounts. I then connected that FriendFeed account to Facebook. Independently, I had a Blog application connected to my Facebook account which injected an update whenever I published a new post.
That meant that I when I wrote a new post, if I tweeted the link (I know, it’s no longer politically correct to use that word, I don’t care, twittered sounds worse to me), my blog link would show up as three separate Facebook updates: 1) Blog app, 2) FriendFeed injection from my RSS feed, 3) FriendFeed injection from my tweet. Yikes! I certainly didn’t mean to hit my friends over the head with my announcement of a new post.
Ultimately that’s not why I cut the cord. I found that I was responding less and less on Twitter than I wanted to, because I was all too aware that it would end up in my Facebook feed, completely out of context to my friends while simultaneously cluttering my stream there.
I haven’t yet actively participated in Google Buzz, but I did connect it to my Twitter account, so every tweet was also buzzed. That’s no longer the case either. If I use Buzz, I want it to be a choice, not a side-effect.
So, I deleted FriendFeed from my Facebook account. I disconnected Buzz from Twitter. I left the Blog app in Facebook, so when I tweet a post I won’t also send that update to Facebook. That’s the only automatic connection I left.
From now on, I will be more active in Twitter (at least I think/hope I will) and I might give Buzz a real go as well. From my multi-protocol client I will choose which networks to update. Some messages might indeed go to many networks (I actively use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare at the moment). But, my silly Twitter interactions will most definitely stay exclusively on Twitter.
Feel free to unfollow me on Twitter if the noise level rises too much. Conversely, feel free to pay a bit more attention on Facebook if you previously felt that I was just spewing nonsense. 🙂
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