Is There Too Much Noise in Social Media?
An article over on TechCrunch today sparks an interesting thought. Michael Arrington states that “The online social landscape today sort of feels to me like search did in 1999. It’s a mess, but we don’t complain much about it because we don’t know there’s a better way.”. He continues that rationale by discussing how things used to be years ago, when we would use things like AltaVista to search, and end up with a bajillion unwanted results… never to find what we were really looking for.
Michael is right on the money when he discusses how decentralized everything is in the social networking landscape these days. I’m right there with him. I have updates, photos, posts and videos spread out over this huge spread of networks. I have friends on one that aren’t necessarily on another. Therefore, I feel the need to try and update everything all at once. Or… I could always use my new Lockergnome.net lifestream, and hope that everyone who follows me will join me there to keep up with me.
I’ve attempted to centralize things for all of you with Lockergnome. The problem is, as Arrington says, not everyone is everywhere. How on Earth are we ever going to update everyone – with all of our media and information – all at once?
Another problem that Michael touches on is an important one, as well. Often when we try to find something specific, we fail. It’s not because the information isn’t out there… it’s because at times what we need gets buried underneath things that aren’t relevant. Again, this circles back to the way search functionality used to be. If I’m looking for information about a specific trend on Twitter and search for it… I will often get hundreds of tweet results that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand. Spammers latch onto trending topics and keywords to get themselves noticed. I then have to wade through all of that looking for what is actually important, and relevant.
I am just as clueless as Micheal is when it comes to finding a solution to the noise pollution problem found on networks such as Facebook and Twitter. With millions of users each per day, it’s not going to be an easy task to straighten everything out. Are you inundated with noise on your social network? Are you tired of trying to sort through the junk to get to the good stuff? If you’re with me… what do you feel the answer is. IS it possible to weed out the bad, and only find the good?
- Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets
- NETiquette (On-Line Etiquette): Tips for Adults & Teens: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter! Terminology .and more
- Twitter Marketing Tips – 3 Surprisingly Powerful Tips to Make Twitter Pay Off With No Costs Upfront – And Much More – 101 World Class Expert Facts, Hints, Tips and Advice on Twitter
5 Comments
Derrick
February 8th, 2010
at 5:05pm
Maybe a “report keyword/ hashtag abuse button” on twitter would help. LOL
Floyd
February 8th, 2010
at 8:46pm
First I rarely use Twitter.
Second, I don’t broadcast my messages to everyone on my Facebook list, just those that I want to send a message to.
For very targeted messages, it’s EMail.
Jennifer
March 1st, 2010
at 12:07pm
I’m not sure sure that ‘Noise’ is the right word for the title of the article…When I hear the term ‘noise’ I automatically think of visual noise I see slathered across websites online with advertisements that overwhelm the page, no different than a busy downtown Chicago streets with ads sometimes pasted to the pavement. Of course most social media sites have taken to advertising to generate more revenue, which is the goal of any site/business. The ‘noise’ of social media is really just the overwhelming QUANTITY that we have to choose from. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Flickr, Buzz, whatever it might be each one has it’s own particular target it was geared toward and I feel like now has completely exploded. The problem is, people are developing more and more websites every day for their unique demographic, and somewhere down the line branches off to eventually include everyone else, like Facebook did. First for college students then for everyone else, business, celebrities, even fictional characters.
On another note, I completely agree with your article. I only actively use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Wordpress and it’s at times too much to keep up with. I’ve sworn off Myspace all together, but if you’re not on the sites your potential clients are, you need to be. I feel like I’ve been forced to choose which sites I stay active in and which ones I give up all together. That’s the problem. We have to find someway to integrate everything into ONE. Of course there are ways to update Twitter with Facebook posts and vice-versa, but still there has to be a better way. A profile page you create and automatically sends it to all of your media sites. HOW this happens, I’m not a programmer…I have no idea.
I find I have the same problem on ‘Twitter’ with the keyword problems. I think there should be ’say no to twitter spam’ campaign. No longer are e-mails a way for spammers to attack your online experience, but now Twitter, Facebook, and any other social networking site is at risk. These ’spammers’ are going to ruin the user experience and in the end force users away from their favorite sites.
Long rant! I enjoyed the post very much! Keep at it!
Jp14
March 3rd, 2010
at 8:12am
In this instance, simpler is better. The bad SN’s weed themselves out by natural selection.
Stonehoof
March 7th, 2010
at 7:51pm
I know I play bad, but you can learn from me as a person who is not into a do, let’s join the clan did not just want to make progress together DOTA do, are filled with love for the game of DOTA, right? I would like to, and we called him a good friend