- Reading – Mega Aftermath: Upheaval In Pirate Warez Land (enigmax, TorrentFreak) http://t.co/o8yUhJxy #
- Reading – Hillary Clinton to step down from 'high wire' of US diplomacy (Scott Baldauf) http://t.co/NuGeYje7 #
- RT @fivethirtyeight: Such a massive disappointment that the other campaigns haven't put out hilarious commercials on Gingrich's moon colony. #
- Reading – Gingrich Upset Chances Dwindle in New Florida Polls (Nate Silver) http://t.co/vwYGVfyG #
- Reading – Poll Analysis: Obama moves into a “significant” lead over Romney (Darryl, HorsesAss) http://t.co/RNFkRO4l #
From BT via Google+:
So are you setting up a feed here?
2:35 AM
From SM via Google+:
Depends what you mean by that. :-) I don’t intend to originate any content at Google+. Google has yet to release an automated way to import content from elsewhere (most relevantly for me a WordPress blog). I saw somewhere someone suggest just +1ing your own posts and doing it that way. That is manual of course though. So I tried it on with the one post above and may try it for the next few posts I make before deciding if I like it or not and if I will continue.
4:38 PM
From BT via Google+:
Unfortunately, the links in your G+ post don’t think they’re links…
5:13 PM
From SM via Google+:
That’s because it is just a shared article from the other site. So the one link to abulsme.com works, the rest is just the preview generated from sharing that main link. So it looks like it killed links. It is also truncated and not the full post. Which is I guess what you expect of a preview snipped from an article from elsewhere, but looks odd if you are expecting to see the actual content directly here. In cases of posts that are a bunch of links, as opposed to a paragraph of text perhaps, it would almost be better if it showed no preview at all, and just gave the link. But I guess it isn’t that smart.
5:21 PM
From BT via Google+:
Here’s my solution: post here directly! ;-) I would certainly enjoy seeing you over here. Maybe someday…
8:31 PM
From SM via Google+:
Nope. My rule, no original posting anywhere other than my blog, unless I have something set up that automatically posts that content on my blog. Thus I put some things on Flickr (which then posts immediately and automatically to my blog), and I recently started putting some limited things on Twitter once I got a daily digest set up to go back to my blog. Social networks are OK, but I want my own site, which I have complete and regular backups of, direct control, etc., to be the one and only definitive presence of any content I produce. Anything else is just links back there.
8:42 PM
From BT via Google+:
I hear you. However, I see a much richer style of posting here that almost (but not quite) takes the place of the need for a blog. More interaction, more sharing, etc.
I like how some people will set up a link to their blog with a nice summary or lead-in, rather than a bare link. It encourage better discussion, and people seem to be more apt to share out.
Even someone like Sam Harris will post a line or two as a lead-in to a blog post, but then get a lively discussion on it happening back here.
Yesterday 8:49 PM
From SM via Google+:
But do you really want Google owning all that conversation any more than you wanted Facebook owning it?
4:01 PM
From BT via Google+:
The way I look at it is this: Facebook was conceived as a system to enable stalking. Google+ was conceived as a system to enable sharing.
There are many other features, functions, and behaviors that the two have in common (some for our benefit, some obviously not), but I think fundamentally Google+ is rooted in a healthier place. Perhaps that sounds naive, but in practice, I feel much better about interacting here than on Facebook.
4:18 PM
From SM via Google+:
Hmmm, the way I look at it, regardless of any origin stories, the reason Facebook exists is to suck as much content and personal information out of its users as possible so that it can monitize that information in various ways… and the reasons Google+ exists is to suck as much content and personal information out of its users as possible so that it can monitize that information in various ways… which is fine in either case, I don’t actually object to that very much. But I don’t see any significant moral or “healthy” difference between the two.
But frankly in my case it really is more about control. You could have a no-profit social network with all the right motivations and privacy safeguards, etc, and I still wouldn’t want to originate content there, because I want my stuff in a place that I fundamentally control, and in the end, that means it won’t “live” as the definitive master copy anywhere other than my own site. (I do make allowances for hosting and such, I don’t run my site off a server in my house any more, and I do put some images on Flickr, etc, but I make sure I have local backups of everything and could always, and relatively easily, recreate everything even if the services I use go dark…)
5:39 PM
From BT via Google+:
I guess it depends on what you’re really trying to achieve. Most of the content you’re posting doesn’t appear to have any particular design need — it’s mostly a lot of interesting pointers to things. So while I get the idea of having control over it, what you’re giving up for that control is reach.
There are people here with a similar style of curating interesting and eclectic content that have follower counts in the hundred thousands. So if you’re looking to converse and get different points of view, it’s hard to argue with that kind of reach…
6:23 PM
From SM via Google+:
The posts that are links to things that I am reading a relatively new addition and still somewhat an experiment. Because they are very low effort for me and I have an automated daily summary, they end up being a once a day feature whereas without them my posting has averaged more like 3 or 4 posts a week (sometimes less). So they do end up being somewhat more prominent, just because I have time for the others less often than once a day usually. But having said that, the substantive non-linky stuff I post falls into a handful of categories: #1) My weekly podcast. #2) Family photos and videos. #3) Since it is an election year, my primary delegate chart posts and electoral college prediction posts (these take a crap load of my time, and once every four years seem to generate more attention than anything else I do). Then very rarely I’ll post something more substantive on an article I’ve read, or an actual original rant or statement on something, or something else original. I’d love to do more of the latter category, but I just don’t have the time.
You are of course right in terms of reach… as an argument to make sure things get cross posted here and at Facebook and at Twitter, and any other place it might be seen.
But I don’t see an argument there for doing anything original here. (Or at Facebook, or anywhere else.) As long as you have the it in your means to do your own of course. The ease with which you can start sharing and doing things on Google+ and Facebook if you are a non-technical person is of course unparalleled. I would never expect Joe Blow random person to maintain a self-hosted blog with all sorts of scripts constantly moving backups and other data between several different places for redundancy, etc. But it is the right way for me, at the moment.
And in terms of “control” I’m not talking about presentation and such, although that can matter, I’m mainly talking about making sure my full archive is always accessible to me, in ways that are convenient to me, and that no third party has the direct power (even if it is left unexercised) to remove or restrict that content. I don’t want to be subject to someone else’s arbitrary terms of service. (I don’t want to be subject to stupid laws like the DMCA either, but that is a whole other story…)
Anyway, one other person’s take on this who is similar to mine:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/06/29/mastering-ones-own-domain-an-no-this-is-not-a-seinfeld-reference/
You mention it is all about what I am primarily trying to achieve… very true. If I had to pick a primary goal, I’d say it is to create a long term archive FOR MYSELF, of various things that were important to me or I had thoughts about or I was interested in over the years. It is more important to me that I have a place I can go and easily look up what I was saying and doing 5 years ago than it is that anybody other than me see the stuff. When they do, and when they comment, and when they engage, that is an awesome thing, and I enjoy it, and having more of that is nice, but in the end it is a bonus, not the main reason for doing anything.
7:18 PM
From BT via Google+:
Agree with all your points. My opinion is that because of the mechanics of circling and how people can easily share circles on G+, it seems like it would be easier to build a following here than either at Twitter or on Facebook. Of course that is conjecture since I do not really have a “following” in any of those places. I will say that of the 156 people who have added me in their circles, the majority are people I don’t know in real life. (I do understand now that’s not your primary goal. However, you have some interesting stuff, so it would be good to see it get more exposure)
I’m not really sure how Facebook works now re: “following” random people. One of the things I really like here is the non-reciprocal nature of circling. It’s totally cool to just follow people and there’s no obligation to follow back. Makes it easy to follow some very interesting people, participate in the dialog, and yet not feel like a stalker or that I have some obligation to be “friends” with someone.
Anyway, my selfish desire is to see what you’re up to in the easiest way possible for me, hence my sales pitch for G+ ;-)
Jan 31, 2012
From SM via Google+:
In terms of building followings, I think the only real answer at the moment is “all of the above”. If you are looking to actually maximize readership, you need to be in all of those places, plus have your own web presence as well. People with lots of time on their hands or who are actually paid to do it will then actually use all of them and do different things in each place to play to the strengths of each platform. Those of us who are just doing it for fun and have limited time will do whatever happens to be easiest for us I guess, although if you had to pick one and really wanted to maximize audience, I suspect you would have to do some thinking and research about your specific target audience and which service they are most likely to be tuned into, etc, etc.
In terms of exposure for me, I don’t deny that I like it better when my stuff is looked at, but if that was my primary goal, I would have given up in despair many years ago since the small number of readers/listeners/etc I have is surely not big enough to logically speaking make it “worth” the time I put into it. (Especially the podcast and the election stuff, which take non-trivial amounts of time every week.) All this only makes sense if it is really for my own enjoyment, not for the purpose of gaining a following, influence, or whatever. (I won’t even mention money, ha!)
5:37 PM
From SM via Google+:
Oh, and I mentioned the archive for looking at what I was doing “five years ago”… Just out of curiosity, here it is:
http://www.abulsme.com/archives.php?id=A2007011
I admit, when I just checked that link, there was one broken image… somewhere along the last five years something got screwed up… but I was able to ssh into my host, locate the problem, and fix it in a few seconds. :-)
5:44 PM
From SM via Google+:
Oh wait, it isn’t January any more. Doh!
Make that http://www.abulsme.com/archives.php?id=A2007021
:-)
5:46 PM