DISQUS

Thanks for the support Louis.I' already come across the rest except for Chris Miller but they're all in Google Reader now. There's some good things happening in the blogosphere at the moment and you do a great job of highlighting it.

Depending on how you want to describe it I suppose you could say that my first step was sharing samples on a BBS back in the early 90's but that's obviously not the same as now.

Mid 90's I started a UFO news website which I updated regularly so that could be seen as my precurser to blogging and got in to IRC and ICQ but after that things went a bit quiet until I started blogging nearly 5 years ago.

It was the likes of Scoble that really got me in to it coupled with a passion for technology so I figured that I had something to say. Times change and I've refocused but am still going strong. I can't remember how I came across Twitter but I checked the other day and my first tweet was 26th Dec 2006.

My advice would be just to get involved. Find some existing friends who are already using social media and hook up with them first before expanding your circle. Obviously don't fall in to the trap of adding too many people too quickly or you'll be thought of as a spammer.

Communicate. Speak to people, don't follow and run but get involved - you never know where it might take you.

In the next 6 months I see myself trying more things. I keep toying with the idea of podcasting or vlogging (maybe getting started with Utterz) but I am looking at establishing my voice after I rebranded my blog a month ago.

Who knows, a job in social media circles would be awesome but I haven't worked out how I'll get there yet.

Your second strategy point is exactly where I see a lot of people going wrong:

"Build a non-marketing community outreach to deliver a voice for our organization to the industry"

Creating a community via social media is not about spamming with a sals pitch it is, as you say, about out-reach and availability. Too often the wrong questions are being asked.

Measurement is going to be difficult to generalise so really does have to considered with relevance to the organisation. I agree with Dave regarding the output/outcome issue - just saying that you'll respond to a query within 24 hours is only the start, the results of that response are what it really important. Can you turn around complaints or convert a query into a sale etc.

It's a question of how much emphasis and importance is going to be placed upon the 'community' in comparison to more traditional methods of interaction with customers.

Deal (work permitting)

A perfect description of the problems facing the web at present. There are too many JASN's out there (Just Another Social Network) with no purpose other than jumping on the bandwagon. They offer nothing different.

I agree that networks should be solution oriented just as with any other product or service.

Mixxed it!

Glad you liked the post and thanks for the link.

I think the main think you need to consider on Twitter (as with anywhere else on the web) is how you manage your reputation. Just don't do anything that could come back and bite you in the rear at a later date.

Great post.

Colin Walker's last blog post..Permalink problems.

Yep, spitter has already been used and seems to fit the bill nicely.

Great post. You've really hit the nail on the head.

The real value is in the discussion, one post or tought may start it but it's what comes after that counts. The old saying goes that two heads are better than one but what about 10, 1000, 1000000. The more people that can be engaged the better and if those people are from different walks of life, cultures, etc. then better still. The geek echo chamber will normally just go round in circles but when you get someone in from the outside with a totally different view it can get people thinking in ways that hadn't previously considered.

Thanks for getting me thinking.

Colin Walker's last blog post..Social bookmarking for social media.

I find that some people are getting confused over the comment fragmentation issue in that they confuse ownership with traceability.

I'm using the WP FriendFeed plugin Corvida mentions and it works nicely. I've also tested the way fav.or.it forwards over comments made within its environment. They both make a big difference.

In my view, the key is not forcing your readership to your homepage but to be able to keep track of them and aggregate the comments in one place in order to facilitate the flow of conversation.

Colin Walker's last blog post..Social bookmarking for social media.

I'm a strictly Windows Mobile kinda guy as well.

Email on the go is great with Direct Push - yes I know you can get mail pushed to you with your Blackberry but that requires a extra layer (the BES) whereas Exchange + Windows Mobile includes everythnig you need natively.

I agree with you Chris, that a keyboard is handy (having come from the T-Mobile branded version of the HTC TyTN/8525 as Adam mentioned). I have, however, just moved away from a QWERTY to a 16 key phone. I couldn't go totally touch though I don't think.

Natively creating/editing Office documents (including 2007) is another key feature for me, as is web access. OK, Pocket IE isn't the best browser but it gets me by until Opera 9.5 or SkyFire are released.

The key is choice though am I'm glad we have one.

Came across JP Rangaswami's post myself - a great read and so true.

Signed up but don't use it - anything that wants me to install a toolbar is a no-no I'm afraid.

Great idea. Makes me wonder why someone hasn't done it in the past. It's so simple it's brilliant!

Herein lies the beauty behind the concept of the whole web 2.0, UGC, Social Media movement. It has all been designed so that even the self confessed technophobe can sign up and get going straight away without really knowing the "significance" of what they are doing.

This ease of access is key to accepting the technology but the fear is that we will become so overwhelmed with social media and networking sites, user generated content, meaningless filtering and mashups for the sake of mashups that the whole thing then becomes counter productive (but that's another issue that I'm planning a post on).

I persoanlly use Bloglines over Google Reader for my RSS feeds for one main reason: the mobile interface is so much better. I do a lot of my catching up whilst mobile - 2 hours a day on the train can be great for feed reading, marking for later and planning posts.

Despite this, you are right to put Google Reader on your list as it has become the de facto standard through popularity and word of mouth. Besides, community offerings and mashups are, and will be, based on Google Reader so it makes sense to use a tool that integrates with others.

Dave,

I must agree that the premise of Mahalo is not as laid out in its description.

I had pretty much let the web 2.0 thing pass me by but thought I needed to get involved or get left behind so started checking out the various startups to see what was going on.

The initial idea behind Mahalo sounds good but once I started reading exactly what it was I figured that it was essentially a selection of a groups favourite links on any given subject as long as that subject fell within the web's "top searches" and not a "web search" as the button indicates. You are searching a database rather than the live web and the results you get are arbitrarily decided in accordance with their guidelines.

Personally I would rather wade through a normal search engine to find the little gems and nuggets from small sites that may not have been around long than be spoon fed a list.

Chris,

Great post. Some very useful tips there.

At the end of 2007 I decided that I was going to be a lot more focused with my blog and devote some real effort to driving traffic toward it and ensuring that there was enough decent content to warrant coming back.

Then a few days ago I came up with my new strategy which does include a number of the objects you have listed here.

I host my own blog within SharePoint so a lot of the community tools aren't designed to work with it. As such, I have to do things like generate my own links to sites such as Digg, reddit etc.

Rather shamelessly I am currently submitting my own posts to Digg, reddit and StumbleUpon (I may add some more over the next few days) and, considering that mine is a low volume blog, the results have been encouraging: 59 referrals from Digg in 4 days, 26 from reddit. If even a small percentage decide they like what they read and subscribe then I'll consider it a success.

I use Twitter to converse with some people I already know and hopefully start conversations with new people (Twitter was how I came across yourself). Like many, I am also using Twitter to post the links to posts.

I don't think that a lot of blog directories are worth joining as you can just get lost in the noise but one place I have joined is Zimbio due to the way it is divided up in to subject specific "wikizines" that are created by the users. This has also prompted some referrals and they all help.

One thing I always make sure of is that (where possible) any link within my site (even if it's pointing to one of my own pages) opens in a new window or tab. It's hard enough getting people there without clicking away and possibly not finish what they were reading!

It's interesting to read both your and Kyle's (in the comments) thoughts on Facebook. I'm on there but don't use it as I think it's grossly over-rated, has had it's day and that it's hard to get past a lot of the noise in order to get to the signal. I may have to rethink things but it all depends how much of the clutter I can filter out and prevent from appearing on my page.

I've often toyed with the idea of a pod or vidcast but suffer from that fundamentral problem - what to say? I'm just managing to sort out a decent signal to noise ration on my blog so maybe I could just replicate to a degree to offer choice as to how to consume my material. Just thinking aloud.

Anyway, love the blog and will no doubt be tweeting at you from time to time.

Despicable. Why not use another blogger as an example Sam, instead of deliberately choosing the one who was lying in a coma in hospital at the time you made your comment and so couldn't argue.

The recent blogger/Ferrari laptop fiasco made me think about this issue from a different angle. The result of that incident was that a lot of bloggers resented people getting freebies - primarily on the grounds that they were (allegedy) little more than bribes - and thought that bloggers should have the same ethics and integrity as journalists and therefore shouldn't accept gifts which could be seen to compromise their "journalistic integrity".

On the other hand a number of bloggers argued that they are not journalists - they are enthusiasts and are not getting paid so shouldn't have to conform to the same standards as journalists - personally, I agree.

Whether or not you believe bloggers should act and be treated like journalists surely they should be like journalists in one particular way: report the news from wherever it comes irrespective of source - if you want to call it an obligation to other bloggers then so be it.

Large news agencies collect stories from smaller, independent journalists so I firmly believe that bloggers should follow that lead. I certainly think that it would be wrong not to link to a "lesser" blog just because you deem it is "beneath you".

http://randomelements.me.uk

Total size is really what's important and how you use it.

I've just been forced to change from 3 15inch to 2 17inch monitors at work and it has reduced my productivity and forced me to change the way I operate.

On the 3 15inch screens I had the various apps we use spread out in a certain way so that I had quick, easy access to everything I needed without having to minimise or overlap anything. Now, I am forced to double up on just about everything.

Although the actual number of pixels I have to play with has increased the physical layout on only two screens prevents the best use of those extra pixels.
Probably two widescreen monitors rather than the standard 4:3 would improve the situation.

I'm going to have to get a third monitor back.

I'm increasingly using my SmartPhone for web based stuff from Exchange ActiveSync to the Windows Live Mobile beta (which is pretty damn good in my opinion)

I'm slowly working on a mobile version of my blog (a bit of an issue as it runs on SharePoint) so I know that it's a bit slow at present until I get ows.js out of the equation for that version of the page.

I can definitely see this year goign the way of the mini-mobile device.

You can always force Glass via the registry if you need to, just add the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\DWM

DWord: UseMachineCheck = 0

Then toggle it on/off using CTRL+SHIFT+F9 when you need to.