I took some time this weekend to do something I have been thinking about for a while now: organizing my feed. That is, taking stock of all of the places that I participate online, organizing them and making sure that they work (pass information back and forth) together. In the process, I have also come up with a basic approach/philosophy to being an early adopter of online tools.
Catalog
Although I below to a ton of online communities, sites and services, I have narrowed down my regular participation to a handful:
- appliedthinking (this site)
- Spout - Helping people find movies they’ll love.
- twitter - Micro-format blogging.
- del.icio.us - Social bookmarking.
- LinkedIn - Professional online network.
- vodpod - Video cataloging and sharing.
- LibraryThing - Online book catalog for sharing and reviewing.
- Last.FM - The “social music revolution”
- flickr - Online photo management and sharing.
- facebook - A “a social utility that connects people with friends and others…”
- FriendFeed - A place to share everything you do online.
- tumblr - The “scrapbook” of blogs.
- plaxo - An online address book with a “Pulse.”
- BrightKite - A “locaiton based social network.”
Be assured that there are others, but this is the list that I keep going back to for one reason or another.
Organize
The way I use them, these sites can be broken down into:
- Primary feeds - Places that I go to post unique bits of content.
- Secondary/derivative feeds - Places that I use to aggregate content from the primary sources. These are typically the places that I am less focused on a topic and more social.
Additionally, I have a series of tools for:
- Input - A mix of online and desktop tools and hardware.
- Tracking - Primarily used to track my success. That is, am I growing a brand and how strong is it?
AND…there are typically a set of sites that I am evaluating:
- New tools - Are they primary feeds? Derivative? Inputs? Trackers?
To that end, I’ve organized the above sites like this:
…and mapped their interaction like this:
My goal in all of this has been to: limit the sites I visit on a regular basis and increase the overall effectiveness of the ones I do…all the while trying not to duplicate too much information which just leads to junking up the web.
Results
Although this is still a work in progress, I think I have accomplished a couple of things. First, I’ve realized which sites/services I have committed to and second, I have a way to quickly compare new site/services/tools to the way I think about .
For example, I have signed-up to the beta of BrightKite. In the past I would have evaluated it in a bit of a vacuum. Now I ask some relevant questions based upon the way I use the other site’s in my daily arsenal:
- Is this a primary or secondary/derivative feed?
- Based upon that, is it better or different than the other feeds I produce in that category?
- Can it be updated through other input devises?
- How does it add value to my brand?
Additionally, I now have a clearer way of looking at the growing list of purely social sites. If they allow me to create activity by pulling (RSS) from my primary sites/services, I’ll do it. I mean, why not? Limited work for a high potential of return. Typically all I need to do is maintain my profile (and keep the avatar fresh) and let the primary sites/services keep my presence active.
This isn’t rocket science, right? But it certainly does help in making a quick evaluation of what site/services I merely sign-up for (which is a lot) and which ones I incorporate into my life.
Do you do it another way? See any flaws in my method? I’m all ears…
* BrightKite, by the way, isn’t looking very good for me. Limited value for the amount of work I need to do to keep up with it. Can’t it be tied to my iPhone’s quasi-GPS?
Tags: appliedthinking, spout, twitter, del.icio.us, linkedin, vodpod, librarything, last.fm, flickr, facebook, friendfeed, tumblr, plaxo, brightkite, organization, feed, feeds
Originally posted on:
appliedthinking