Partager via

Social Software - Redux

  • Article

SSicon Social software a la Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Windows Live, and Twitter continue to grow more popular. And the article on it’s success and even early demise continue to litter the internet landscape. While I’ve found some benefit from these tools, for the most part I look at them as just a small part of what I do for my company.

To use the software correctly you really want to be hooked in at all times but it becomes very easily distracting, especially to the OCD-inclined personalities that you often find at a software company. And I have a lot of friends who don’t even want to try it for fear of cutting into their ‘me’ time. So here are my recommendations.

Play with the social software and stay a while with the ones that interest you. Try to optimize the features with the way you work. For example, in Facebook the stream (located on the home page) can be constantly edited to limit access from apps you are not interested in, people who are in your friend list but most speak a language you don’t, and people who talk about things you’d rather not. And you can delete people who don’t participate and for me, mostly are people who asked to be my friend and then never return to Facebook again.

Once you’ve found your favorite apps, optimized the experience and audience, winnow out the wanna-be social software contenders to the most valuable and fun. Don’t try to be all thangs to all services—there just is not enough time in the day. If a service doesn’t work for you, let it go.

Play with the newcomers in the social software space. I recently was pinged by a friend in Goodreads.com and found it a very nice way to track what I and my family and friends have read. So there might be yet another favorite service in my top three.

Comments