Tag Archive - social networking

The Social Web

April 26, 2010 in culture with 0 Comments

At a conference last week, Facebook announced some dramatic changes about how its platform would be used to help make the web more social.  In addition to being able to “like” and “recommend” things you want to share with your friends even when you are browsing non-Facebook sites, you can also see what things you and your friends like together.  You’ll even notice that this blog post has the ability to “like” it now directly from my site. (Go ahead, try it!)

Several sites have partnered with Facebook to help make their sites more social.  Below is an example on Pandora when you are listening to a song that one of your Facebook friends also likes it shows you.

Obviously this has many alarmed about privacy and how to control it.  I don’t think it is quite as alarming as some are saying, but you should educate yourself on what it means. This post on the Facebook blog is pretty helpful.  If you haven’t done so already, you should also review and adjust your privacy settings for the various types of connections.

I think a more social web is a good thing in general, but getting there must be done carefully and with proper education.    What do you think?   If you are a Facebook user do you only want to share with your friends and family inside the walls of Facebook or would you like to see Facebook extended and help make the rest of the web more social?

Do you have "friend standards"?

March 9, 2010 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

Just curious, do you follow everyone who follows you on Twitter (automatically or manually)? Or do you apply some criteria to who you follow back?

I turn on the setting in Twitter so I get an email anytime someone starts to follow me and I look at the profile of everyone who does. I got this one today and had to laugh. I sure hope @nathanaelwang isn’t looking for any follow back!

Social networking is about engagement and conversation. If your conversation is one way (either all talking or all listening) it isn’t going to work for very long.

I’d love to hear some feedback about what criteria you use before you decide to follow someone back on Twitter or accept a friend request on Facebook.

Managing Technology (or Does it Manage You)?

December 14, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Consider N.T. Wright’s recent thoughts that underscore the unintended consequences of social media.

NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

via qideas.org

I enjoyed this post by Gabe Lyons. As one who love to try out new things and learn about new technologies, especially web-technologies, I have to be careful not to loose perspective or become too isolated in the process.

Do you create boundaries for yourself? Do you recognize the warning signs when your spending too much of your time in an online world vs the ‘real world’? Social media / networking and blogging can certainly be a good thing and I don’t believe they should be shunned completely, but we must be responsible and careful with it.

With the Christmas holidays coming and a New Year approaching, maybe this would be a good time to look at the ratio of our online to in-person relationships and the time we spend on each. For some, we may need to spend less online and more face to face. For others, however, we may need to start investing a bit more into the online world because we have been ignoring it.

I do believe this is an issue we all will have to deal with more and more both personally, with our families and corporately (in place of work and in our churches). Do you need to make any adjustments in the coming year?