One of the advantages of moving my all of my feeds (yes, that includes Twitter) into my RSS reader (meaning, one spot I completely control and manage), I notice a startling trend. I’m receiving mass amounts of duplicate information. I don’t mean the same topic discussed over multiple sites.
I mean being presented with the same damn links.
I expect to receive some duplicates; that cannot be avoided. For example, if I subscribe to Chawlk, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. I expect to see duplicates because those links are based on what people submit. If I am subscribed to a person’s blog, and they Twitter they wrote a new blog post, I’m receiving the same link a minimum of two times. If someone else decides to share that link, I receive it more. If it appears on Chawlk, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. I receive it again. If I log into Facebook, I most likely will see it again.
That’s too many times. Twice is too many times, especially when it is happening over multiple blogs.
Thinking about this a bit, most people do not end up on the link submit sites, so all I have to deal with is Twitter, blog links, and profile pages like Facebook. In honesty, Facebook is only an issue when I log in (which is once a week at most) so I’ve narrowed it down to Twitter and site RSS feeds.
Well, that is an easy fix. If a person posts their blog entries on Twitter, what reason do I have to subscribe to their blog? None, zip, zero. I can easily drop the feeds for any writer that posts their blog links to their Twitter account and not miss a thing. Problem solved. Yeah me!
Sucks for the writer though.
By making Twitter more of a resource than their blog, eventually, people will do what I did, make a choice between which service he or she wants to follow. These things become more apparent when all of the data is in one place. I decided to place all of my data in an RSS reader because I can manage how often the data is retrieved. Some people opt to use FriendFeed, SocialThing, etc. With all the data in one place, in my RSS reader, I could recognize how often I thought to myself, “I’ve already seen that” or since my RSS reader provides statistics on usage, which feeds I was completely ignoring because I already absorbed the information.
Cross-posting data will eventually work against you because the need to cross-post is slowly diminishing. As new technologies evolve behaviors will naturally adapt with it. When the person adapts the new behavior often determines if a person is a follower (as in not a leader). Instead of managing the situation before it gets out of control (information overload in this case), the person will wait until everyone else starts talking about it, then take action.
If you cross-post, expect your numbers to drop somewhere. If you’ve made your Twitter feed more valuable than your blog/site feed, congrats on weakening your brand by allowing a 3rd party application to come between you and the people trying to follow you.
Dumping some RSS feeds right now. Thank you for the suggestion.
Another problem my co-worker noticed. She read your article and she was going to drop Twitter people instead, but she doesn’t want to be considered a snob. She decided to drop the RSS feeds instead.
Curious, that’s an interesting scenario. I think I would have made the same call. I didn’t think of that at all but I wouldn’t want to have to explain why I stopped following someone.
You know what? I would do the same thing because the Twitter numbers are public. Dropping the RSS makes the drop secret lol.
You read where Scoble lost 200 people because he was twittering so much? 200 people in one night! He’s #4 on Twitterholic now. I think information overload awareness is on the rise.
He did? I just looked at his Twitter page. I see why, he’s trying to talk out loud to thousands of people. How dumb.
I cleaned out my bookmarks. I read PopUrls and I noticed I had some of those sites bookmarked. I felt good getting rid of a few.
I looked at a demo of Scoble’s Twitter feed. It was like a chat room. No way he is really following all of those people.
With Scoble singing the praises of Twitter, I think bloggers will start posting their blog links to Twitter. Does Scoble follow blogs anymore?
I think I would drop the blog as well because I wouldn’t want my numbers to drop. Different reason but the same result. Blogger loses.
Last week I changed my bookmarks to feeds because I had mostly blogs bookmarked. Twitter pressure already? :=)
Numbers mean a lot. I know people who sign up and beat their friends over the head to join so their numbers are respectable. On LinkedIn, over 500, Facebook over 5000, is there a limit on Twitter?
I just thought of something. If someone has 5000 people on Facebook, 500 on LinkedIn, 15,000 in Twitter, how many of those are repeats?
My guess is he has a lot of dups. Thousands of them. He has a lot of followers but a lot of duplicate people. Scoble does not post his blog entries in Twitter or the reverse. I think the items he writes is unique to each service isn’t it?
Tyme I went through my feeds, friendfeed, facebook, myspace and bookmarks and deleted all the criss-cross items. I felt better getting rid of the layers of crap. I removed about 50 things but I’m not missing anything.
Tyme I followed your wonderful advice (you always give great advice) and found the exact same thing everyone else is seeing (some keen eyes here). Too many duplicates in too many different places only adds to my information overload and I don’t need that. I liked the simpler days when people lived 50 miles apart.
I closed my Twitter account because I made the mistake of following everyone I thought was cool. Their Twitters bored me.
I’m making a prediction. Scoble is going to eventually say he is suffering from information overload because following so many people will be draining.
Just like he did with blogs.
I’m going to start working on a Word document for Scrivs. I haven’t given him one in a long time.
Says the man that doesn’t follow anybody. Sup son, how’s it going?
Tyme I just saw your comment, he will kill you.
Scrivs doesn’t follow anyone in the first place. Does that make him smarter? /runs
I think he misses my Word documents and no, not smarter. More efficient maybe…
Absolutely nothing to undo, no worries about hurt feelings, no information overload. Efficiency.
I got into a fight today with my boss. He said I SHOULD be on LinkedIn. I asked him why should I?
Is LinkedIn going to give me some money? No?
Are they going to make me Scoble popular? No?
Is it going to give me a bigger web presence? No?
Then the answer is no. He wouldn’t leave it alone. Everyone I know that has an account lets it site there and they ONLY use it to snoop on other people. We sure as HELL don’t use it to find new employees. He worked all my nerves.
Geeks forget they are the minority. Most people haven’t heard of LinkedIn. They don’t care about LinkedIn. The site sucks because you have to know people for it to work. People adds friends because of the connections but how often do those connections do anything for you? Small even for the geeks.
To be smart geeks are stupid. No offense.
I have never received a Tyme Word document anyways. And good point everyone, I forgot I don’t follow anyone. Whoops. That just means I follow Tyme’s advice before Tyme gives it.
What Tyme should be doing is a certain guest post she promised this week although I said take your time. Fuck a Word doc.
[...] Cross-posting information will eventually work against you. [...]
I love you two. Sincerely. I’m on my way to work and I know my team will enjoy reading you two. Our productivity goes up after enjoying you two.
Scrivs, Tyme gave you a Microsoft file and you told her don’t ever give you one again. Tyme sounded confused on how to give you whatever she was giving you if it wasn’t a Microsoft file. We use Word at work and I imagined Tyme’s beautifully styled document turning to trash if it was sent any other way but a .doc file. I’m starting to laugh thinking about it.
Amen, Tyme. I shall, from now on, only publish rubbish on my Twitter. =)
Tyme, I read your article and I didn’t think anything one way or another. Then I read Curious George’s comment and thought, “Oh shit!”. The situation made sense and reading the other responses made it real for me. Another situation I thought of is using Twitter so much a reader is not inclined to subscribe to the blog.
Since you helped me I want to return the favor. I play World of Warcraft (Darkspear) and my girlfriend is in the game. Level 40 was the highest she would get before creating a new character. I’m 70, waiting on her and she was truly pissing me off. After a two hour conversation she admitted she felt her characters felt weak. Another two hours later I realized she didn’t understand how to gear her characters. 15 minutes later I realized she didn’t understand what spells to use during fights. 5 minutes later I realized why, she didn’t understand stats. Doing anything without understand those things drains the fun out of the game. How could she PVP without understanding the spells? She wouldn’t go in a dungeon because she said she didn’t know what to do.
3 days, 500 gold, and many cheap greens later, she now understands and she’s great. I’m not sure what I said to make her understand it but I swear one minute she was clueless and the next she was on a new character properly gearing it PVPing at the right levels and doing dungeons. Only after she figured it out did she admit she dreaded 70 because what could she do? She was suffering because the game was much harder with her not playing right. I remember in a podcast Tyme said she bought guides and she should buy a bunch of gold so she could play with gear. You sound like how my girlfriend used to be. Are you still troubled with stats Tyme?
Thanks again for the wise advice.
I would not be surprised if you figured it out Bruce. She said in a stream recently she was going to sort through something. I don’t remember what it was now.
Tyme may have given me a Word document in the past. I know I always tell her not to give me those things and that’s kind of the joke. But I know for a fact Tyme has never given me a beautifully styled document before. That’s absurd.
I will cherish that statement forever.
Sigh, yes Bruce, I have the same problem. I don’t understand it. Things just don’t seem to work as they should. I purchase “better” daggers, equip them, and somehow I’m weaker than I was prior. I’m obviously missing something huge because I think I’ve tried just about every class trying to get the magical answer to “click”. It’s not working.
The magical answer is to give me your account and pay for a lifetime subscription.
And then somehow watch you play….
No you will be too busy mastering Hello Kitty Online.
Oh see, that’s foul. I refuse to let a game outdo me. There is a key. Fuck that, if you can do it, I can do it.
Hang in there Tyme. You will overcome the mental block you have and dominate the game. :=)
Yeah come on everybody, we need to cheer Tyme on. She is almost there we can all feel it. Playing the game for 3 years you know she is about to reach tipping point.
COME ON TYME WHITE! CHOO CHOO!
Choo Choo???? Have I been playing this game that long? No way….
Game came out in 2004 didn’t it?
When you figure it out Tyme, I hope you write about it. I want to know the story behind what made the change for you, what you did afterwards, how you proceeded in the game. Screenshots
Yeah Tyme I would like that as well. Make it a 10 part epic tale.
Maybe this is a little late and the conversation has already moved on but after discovering this blog via Robert Scoble’s response I decided to read some posts on it.
The new aggregator as far as I can see is Friendfeed and Robert Scoble has stated that he prefers it and doesn’t want to spend the time updating his blog and in following it myself seems to be posting to Google reader.