Your digital shadow, we all have one. Wherever we are on the web we cast a digital shadow of our presence. Unfortunately, we also have to manage those shadows to get the most out of them. Kind of like pruning back the rose bushes in order to get fewer, but bigger blooms.
In order to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, consider:
I'm a member of LinkedIn.
I'm on TribeHollywood.com.
I'm part of the Ambrosia Publishing Network on Ning.
I belong to two Yahoo Groups - The Wold Newton Family and The Wildcat Books Group.
I have a Flicker account.
I am on the Done Deal Pro Message Board.
I am also on the Artful Writer Forum...
(and I think I'm still on Script Secrets, but I haven't posted in years)
And I have this blog...oh, and another.
I have been invited to join Facebook, and Myspace and want to balance the effort of setting up and managing webspace against the networking opportunities. I want to be able to manage these accounts with minimal effort and maximum impact.
So where is everyone? What's good and what isn't? Why?
Discuss.
Edit to add: I've also set up accounts on Youtube, Divx, Metacafe, Joost, Spout, etc... you get the picture.
4 comments:
I'm apart of:
LinkedIn
Flickr
Youtube
Vimeo
Artful Writer (but NEVER post)
My blog
Twitter
facebook.
... lots of other things
facebook's good if you keep your friends your friends. It can be a great way of keeping in touch, but it is very intimate since pretty much everyone can see everything unless you dig around in the privacy settings. So before you add that pulp stalker, decide whether or not your account is for promotion or personal. It also lets you create groups similar to the Yahoo groups for discussion which might be good if you're trying to find like minds or communicate with your blog audience.
I don't really like myspace, people seem to use it more for publicity and an ugly website replacement. But if you're looking for faster promotion and a bigger digital footprint give it a try. Just remember that it usually isn't that private.
Conclusion:
If you want to create and maintain meaningful relationships or networking opportunities then I would suggest facebook.
I'm an advocate for 'net solutions, but when I hear of a new service, I really have to sit back and consider whether I can use this for promotion or for staying in contact with colleagues/friends.
MySpace, spammy as it is, makes for some halfway decent promotion. A nice YouTube/Twitter/AIM combo is my favorite. Most of the rest seem like dolled-up personal messaging systems.
I like claimID because it helps you keep it all straight. I have two blogs, Facebook, FlickR, Youtube, LinkedIn, Twitter (Jason, do you Twitter? I never do), MySpace (never use it), delicious, digg, skirt, reddit, stumbleupon it and more that I've forgotten.
I am a social networking butterfly.
To honest, I never do. Somebody will remind me how great twitter is and I'll get excited about it–but nothing ever really happens. However, I keep my account just in case...
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