I’ve been hearing of many people getting to the point of overload on the number of social networks they belong to and the number of networks they are following. I have a handle on the feeling and have experienced the same headaches that many suffer from as a result.
I spent Sunday actually building my community of social networks. I try to make sure that I always know how to use the tools available and to be knowledgeable about the use of the latest of the networks out there. The first social network I tackled was Facebook. This seems to be one of the largest growing social networks lately and I decided I better get on that bandwagon. I added friends I knew and some I actually didn’t know personally. My apologies if I sent you an invite to be my 
friend as I ran the easy to ask application that spams all your email files.
I have been an early adopter of the Twitter social network and have really enjoyed Twitter as a way to follow along with my friends, clients, and peers. I have spent a long time growing the number of friends and the number of followers to my Twitter page. This does cause problems when you ever want to switch to another social network that might be very similar or the next generation. Such a thing happened when I decided to check out the Twitterish type of application in Jaiku.
Jaiku was the next type of Twitter type social network that offered a different user interface and some other features. I was not very enamored with the service and barely stayed long enough to see if it was worth my time. It was not the most favorite of networks following the Twitter explosion, and was launched to close to the same time. This was not the same with the latest of networks to launch.
The next network I decided to try was Pownce. This network in my opinion launched at just the right time. They took the best attributes or the other networks, expanded them somewhat and made it very nice to look at as well as operate. I was able to grow this community much faster than I was when Twitter first came on and it could be because I promoted the building of my Pownce page and community through the use of Twitter, which in itself is an irony.
Tomorrow is our scheduled radio show at Blog Talk Radio. We will be discussing this new onslaught of social networks and we will talk about the headaches others are having as a result of trying to keep up with the the madness. We are always going to be able to tell our clients about these applications and how best to keep up with them. Our most beneficial service is actually providing a social media manager or community watcher for companies.
UPDATE: [7-3-07] Thanks to BL Ochman through Twitter, she points us to an article by Mashable about Mini Blogging, where they compare 8 different applications.
I was thinking the very same thing today. Well, maybe not that it gives me headaches, but that it’s really difficult to keep up with.
No more social networks than I’m a part of, I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone who is a real joiner. Plus, how do you keep all of them updated and really engage the user base?
I was also thinking about the many social media apps I’ve tried and left in the dust, not unlike your Jaiku attempt. These things are beginning to become a dime a dozen. Most will not achieve any real traction I predict.
Nope, sanity has to prevail here. My A-list right now is LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter (for the time being) and Active Rain, which is a real estate blog network.
Thanks for the comment Paul, you might want to take a look at the Mashable article I updated this post with and see what you think. Join us for the show today.
“…many people getting to the point of overload on the number of social networks they belong to and the number of networks they are following.”
I agree. This problem is not just restricted to “social networking” sites per se. It pertains to anything and everything “social” - “social media”, “social bookmarking”….
Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Cylive - a social publishing site.
Found this off of your Pownce message!
Too many networks is true. I have Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce all up and running, not to mention my Facebook checks a couple of times per day.
The next step is an aggregation application. Of course that would require push or poll interfaces to each of them. And yet, that would run the risk of becoming it’s own social network. Ah.
What I see though would be such a tool, and that works more like my I’m does, presenting me the different ways I can reach a particular contact.
For example, if I want to send a note to my friend Mike, but he’s offline, the app should clue me in that Mike is on Twitter, or better yet, hide that from me altogether, and let me just click on his icon and send a message and let the app figure it out.
One can dream right?
Cat Blogging - By a Cat Who Takes Pictures…
I’ve lived with cats for the past 30 years or so, and I can’t tell you much more about how they think now than I could on the day the first one came home. But now a man in Germany, pondering the mystery of the cat’s mind, has rigged a small digital …
[…] Too Many Social Networks Causes Headaches The first social network I tackled was Facebook. This seems to be one of the largest growing social networks lately and I decided I better get on that bandwagon. I added friends I knew and some I actually didn?t know personally. … […]
They are starting to get software combining all the instant message software already. Doesn’t seem like it would be that big of a step to see all the social networks go for the same type of thing.
Whoever comes out with something like that will be famous. (