dsims' posterous of ponderings

Google+ Circles (and Facebook Friend Lists) only solve half of the problem.  It is great for privacy, but not for relevancy.  If I post a link to an article about programming, I don't want to limit it to a small group of people like "Tech Friends" because it's not a privacy issue.  If I forget to put someone in that circle they won't see the link I shared.  If I post it to "Public" then everyone sees my link, even though half my followers don't care about programming.

This problem is sort of solved now by having multiple social networks.  I post random thoughts and tech-stuff on Twitter, more family-oriented stuff on Facebook, check-in on Foursquare, dump photos on Picasa, share links on Google Reader & delicious, and long posts on posterous... all because no single service can handle it all intelligently.

Not all posts are created equal.  A check-in at starbucks should not be treated the same as long blog post explaining something important.  I would post a lot more if I knew I wasn't going to drown the good stuff with what most people don't care about.

Maybe the solution is for all posts to have categories/tags.  Categories that people can hide.  Categories that people can follow without becoming my "friend".  A good start would be some useful auto-tags...  like #photo, #checkin, #share, #video.  Then let me tag my own posts.  I could mark a post as #programming and not worry about who sees it because they can easily hide all #programming posts if they want.  Tech acquaintances can subscribe to only my #programming posts, so they don't have to see #photos of my #dog.

Maybe another solution is to simply group posts into short-term and long-term buckets?  A quick thought, a funny link, or a check-in are only really relevant "now".  A photo album, detailed blog post, or important announcement should be more prominant and visible for longer.

Some services were on the right track but never quite got there.  

• Buzz, FriendFeed, & Facebook allow you to hide posts created by specific apps & services.
• FriendFeed has the ability to post to both your own feed and to "Groups" at once.  You can also apply some advanced filtering as a "Saved Search".
• Facebook has some long-term buckets with Notes and Photos.
• Posterous allows multiple blogs/Spaces for a single person, but are too disconnected.
• Some Twitter apps, like TweetDeck, let you hide posts that contain certain words

Google+ Circles and Facebook Friend-Lists give me more control over who sees my posts.  What I want is more control over the posts I see.

Brightkite is a location-based social network that I've been using for a while now.  I use it to keep a log of where I've been and to leave notes & photos that future visitors can see, sort of like when you rent a vacation house and you sign the guestbook.  It's really easy to use thanks to the great mobile site & apps (especially the Android app) and I like that posts are at a specific business/address (if it exists in Google's directory) instead of at just lat/long coordinates.  Plus it's fun to see a map of all the places I've been:

Brightkite isn't the only service though.  Lately more and more geo-centric sites and apps are popping up:

• Foursquare is a similar service that is fun to use, but at this point it needs a lot of work before it can dethrone Brightkite.  For example it only really works within the city limits, else you have to type in all the address details yourself... no thanks.  Their achievements system is great though and really encourages you to use the service.
• Google Latitude takes a different approach.  Instead of "checking-in" to a location, it uses your phone's GPS to share your location on a map in real-time with friends.
• Glympse, like Latitude, tracks you in real-time but it lets you to send a temporary view to anyone you want.  I used this to share a live view of me running the Peachtree Road Race this year.
• GPS logging apps like My Tracks aren't social in of themselves, but it lets you share your hiking/biking/jogging results with others.

All these services have one thing in common... they are much more useful if your *real-life* friends use them (for example Brightkite will alert you when friends check-in nearby).  Very few of mine do because there is not enough benefit to justify the effort and expensive technology required to use them.  So for now I will be a lonely check-in, signing a lot of blank guestbooks.

1. Join a new service to keep up with a specific source of information.
2. Subscribe to other sources of interest as you stumble upon them, and to your friends as they join.
3. When what you care about gets lost in the stream of info, start unsubscribing to reduce the noise.
4. Abandon trying to keep up, or re-define how you use it.

• Update no more than twice a day.
• Must include the full article.
• Have a high signal-to-noise ratio.  Every article should be interesting.

• Organize sources into lists.
• Have important info delivered to you via email, IM, or desktop notifier.
• Hide what you don't want to see.