I was catching up on my RSS and podcasts consumption when I found myself getting very stressed.
Listening to “For Immediate Release” (Episode #341) there was a listener comment from Mitch Joel, who raised the issue of how are we supposed to manage all this information, links, networks etc.
Mitch used Twitter as an illustration:
Currently, if you look at my Twitter profile page, there are 1577 followers, while I’m following only 545 people. It used to be the same number, but I’ve become a bit of a Twitter Snob. I found it increasingly difficult to follow many different topics of conversation from people I did not know, who were talking to (or about) other people I did not know on topics that were of no immediate interest to me.
It’s a real problem.
For most people* all this stuff is in addition to the “day job”.
The growth in smeedia content from blogs, to RSS, Twitter, social networking etc. hasn’t, in most cases, been accompanied by a growth in the tools and technologies to manage that content.
Success is often portrayed as connecting to thousands of people or having thousands of people connect to you. But the noise generated from these connections can also make them practically value-less.
Conversation is a term often bandied about concerning Web 2.0. But conversation isn’t about trying to hold or understand the commentary of 25,000 people.
Often volume is the most lauded feature. Don’t get me wrong, volume has its place. But I do find that the work generated by trying to manage Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. can be stressful and have a questionable ROI.
I think there is an ROI – which is why I continue to dip in and out, but volume isn’t everything (or the only thing).
For me, this proves we’re still at the early stages here and we’ve a long way to go.
There seems to be no end of individuals and organisations being able to ship volumes of content online, where it becomes compelling is where we get the tools to be able to mine, identify and use that data.
We’ll get there….
Footnote:
*This statement is not based on any fact or published research. It is a rash generalisation – but it’s mine 🙂
Murphy's Law 