All this social network integration has us chasing our tails. Today I posted a Tweet on Twitter which was automatically posted to my Facebook page. A friend posted a response on my Facebook page. Facebook notified me via email that a friend had posted a reply. I got the email on my cell phone. It took me a minute to figure out how/where to respond. Add to this my blog, feeds from FriendFeed, LinkedIn page, Plaxo updates, my desktop computer, and mobile devices, and the confusion is multiplied. Don’t get me wrong, the integration is better than having totally separate islands of information, but we need to adjust to how to deal with all of this.
Information Overload? My parents didn’t have cell phones or email or the Internet. Life was slower then…much slower. Some say we are drowning in information today. But, I can’t imagine living any other way. I actually find it relaxing to know I am on top of everything. Years ago I would get nervous if I was away from my phone or email very long. Now I can just discreetly glance at my cell phone and see the latest email messages, voice mails, stock quotes, and news headlines. Call me crazy, but I feel more comfortable and relaxed with my Smartphone by my side.
Chasing our tails – Twitter showing up on Facebook is a new development. FriendFeed aggregating feeds and comments is also relatively new. ReTweeting (RT) interesting tweets from people you follow…out to the people that follow you, and having them RT it as well, is another confusing maelstrom. Michael Parekh commented on my Facebook page “Throw in various desktop and mobile Twitter clients, and services like FriendFeed et al, and you have quite the round-robin exercise.” Then he adds "Let's not even get into responses to re-Tweets across these networks. Pin-ball Alley."
This will get sorted out. There will be some icons or notifiers that tell us where a message originated and how best to respond to it. It is just amusing to watch this develop.
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