29
Mar

Can we get a little sanity here please

Posted by Steven Hodson in Saturday, March 29th 2008

Enough already I don’t hide the fact that I’m not big on this whole friending thing that is a necessary part of being a member of the various social media and social networks that are abounding all over the place like bad weeds. Even so I accept the fact that it really the only way for the underlying principals of sharing in the social networks to work but there comes a point when you just gotta say

Enough with the frikken noise already.

The whole Gotta Friend Everyone Everywhere Syndrome (GFEES) has been made more than apparent with FriendFeed and its incredible growth the last little while. Don’t get me wrong I am not slamming FriendFeed here - in fact it is because of them that this evil syndrome has been brought to light and shows why it needs to be crushed ASAP.

My inbox this morning was a perfect showcase for GFEES and the madness that is providing more bacn for my morning breakfast than it is viable conversation starters. In my inbox I found that the majority of mail waiting for me to sift through was FriendFeed and Twitter notifications that I had been friended and that they were waiting with baited breath for the return action.

Now this wouldn’t be so bad except that most of the people friending me on FriendFeed were also friending me on Twitter.

Stop It!

Don’t you get the basic principal here folks? If you friend me on FriendFeed you don’t have to do the same on Twitter because if I friend you on FriendFeed I am going to see your Twitter stream so I don’t need to do the same on Twitter; and chances are starting today I’m not going to because there is just too much damn noise out there.

So please for the sanity of your new found friends out there take it easy on the friending stuff - please.

Conversation Tags: social networks, social media, social aggregators, friending

under: The Social Web

Viewing 9 Comments

Mark Trapp 2 months ago 1 point
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I hear you, Steven. Every once in a while I'll have someone subscribe to my Friendfeed, then subscribe to every. single. service. I'm on. Even services I haven't even used for more than securing my name. I don't mind the cross subscribing for people I'm interacting with constantly, but I promise you new follower, anything interesting is happening on Friendfeed, not Polyvore or Yelp or whatever else I impulsively signed up for.

I gotta say though, GFEES really makes trying out new services easier. One of the big problems with any social network, especially for people who aren't early adopters/social media whatevers, is once you sign up for these services, they aren't fun unless you have a network. Any time one of these services comes out, like for instance identi.ca yesterday, I get at least 30-50 people friending me up, so I can get in and play with the network right away.

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4 /people/Itafroma/ /people/Itafroma/following/ http://friendfeed.com/itafroma 16500702 in/marktrapp Itafroma Itafroma Itafroma

PurpleCar 2 months ago 1 point
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Yeah I keep going back and forth about my Twitter feed being on FF. But honestly, it is all just noise in the end. I will make the extra effort to post something important on FF after I post it on Twitter. As for the multiple connections to the same people, meh. Doesn't bother me really. But I don't follow back on FF. Trying to keep it manageable.

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http://www.purplecar.net/

Eric Rice 2 months ago 1 point
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We must control ourselves in what we publish. Once upon a time, I was a noisy bastard on Twitter (nearly 17,000 tweets), and yet, I will not add my Twitter account to my Friendfeed, even though you could tune out that *part* of me.

I'll say it again, Friendfeed is what Feedburner could have been: a conversational aggregator.

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5 /people/ericrice/ /people/ericrice/following/ http://ericrice.com

jezarnold 5 months ago 1 point
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Guilty as charged! I would blame it on one LG :) After all its his Google Reader Shared feed, that got me reading and loving your blog in the first place!

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1 /people/jezarnold/ /people/jezarnold/following/ http://www.jezarnold.com/thirty jezarnold jezarnold jezarnold jezarnold

StevenHodson 5 months ago 1 point
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Jezarnold - don't get me wrong I appreciate every single FriendFeed or Twitter friend request but there has to be some semblance of noise control instituted somewhere :).

Also I am glad you are enjoying the blog and I hope I keep writing stuff that you enjoy reading.

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54 /people/StevenHodson/ /people/StevenHodson/following/ http://www.winextra.com StevenHodson

jezarnold 5 months ago 1 point
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Fully agree! Sometimes I look at the applications that are available, and whether they get decent reviews or not, and before you know it you have a new username and need to add some friends.

What's needed right now is XYZ application, that has the ability to say, "these people are my friends, and if I add them or they add me then don't bother telling me" Any new service I can add to XYZ and it will automatically add my old friends etc.. we do need some link in!

You're in my priority list in gReader right now, so as long as you have something interesting to say, then its gonna get read! I will tell you now, that you leave it a month or so without adding some value, you will get relegated to my secondary list.. and these days thats a "Mark all as read" :)

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1 /people/jezarnold/ /people/jezarnold/following/ http://www.jezarnold.com/thirty jezarnold jezarnold jezarnold jezarnold

Ruud Hein 5 months ago 1 point
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"...there is no reason why one *has to* also send a Twitter request as well"

Bien oui! Because there's not 2-way sync. So if I would Friend you on FriendFeed only, I can't see you on Twitter *but* through the eyes of FriendFeed. Only if there would be a 1:1 sync between Twitter + FriendFeed (to keep using those 2 as examples) would it make sense to go with one central service.

If I already was your friend on *all* services provided by FriendFeed then it no longer makes sense to become a friend on FriendFeed.

Somewhere there must be a redundancy though; that much is clear.

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1 /people/ruudhein/ /people/ruudhein/following/ http://www.ruudhein.com

Ruud Hein 5 months ago 1 point
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Look, this makes no real sense :)

Yes, it would be fun if we had The One True Service to use -- but we don't (hence FriendFeed, right?). The idea is to have someone's address everywhere then; be able to to just talk with you on Twitter, or only view what you did on Flickr, or... You get the idea.

"You have my telephone number so *please* don't ask me for my cell phone" makes no sense. Not wanting contact via email because you can have it by mail doesn't either.

So, as for me, I like to be able to log in to Twitter using Twhirl and see what people are saying *without* being forced to go through FriendFeed.

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1 /people/ruudhein/ /people/ruudhein/following/ http://www.ruudhein.com

StevenHodson 5 months ago 1 point
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Ruud hang on a sec please :) I am not suggesting that one *shouldn't* accept Twitter requests after all I use both services as well. What I am trying to suggest is that if you know that the person is already on FriendFeed and Twitter and you are doing the friending thing from FriendFeed there is no reason why one *has to* also send a Twitter request as well. There is no forcing here as I would imagine that people using both services will invariably have both open at some point - if not like me all the time.

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54 /people/StevenHodson/ /people/StevenHodson/following/ http://www.winextra.com StevenHodson

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Can we get a little sanity here please