Social Media Marketing Strategies

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This post highlights 10 members that you should follow on FriendFeed. For those of you that are new to my blog, this will be the third post of this type. The previous ones are located here and here. There are several more hundred people that belong on this list. I will publish a new list with more frequency, preferably monthly.  I will also be exploring some themed type recommendation lists. I hope you get the same value from these members as I do.  If you do subscribe to any of these members, please give them some time to subscribe back, if they choose to do so.  They have no idea that their inbox is about to be flooded with notifications. It could be a little overwhelming

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1) Atul Arora

Short Bio: Atul’s primary background  is in software engineering. He currently is the Director of Product Management at Vimo.  Atul is an active FriendFeeder. I rely on several human filters to look for new content, and Atul is one of them. Atul’s feed is strictly business which is what I appreciate about it, and I think you will as well.
Topics of focus: Current events, Technology,  Social Media,  Applications,  Web 2.0

FriendFeed:Subscribe

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2) Chris Brogan

Short Bio: Chris comes from a background in applications engineering, project management, and telecommunications. His passions is for teaching businesses how to use social media technologies for external outreach and beyond. He is one of the leading and most sought after Social Media Strategists on the market. His blog should be the starting point for any individual or business looking to seriously get involved with social media. Chris is currently Vice President, Strategy & Technology at CrossTechMedia.

Topics of focus: Social Media, Applications, Marketing Strategies, Enterprise Collaboration, Web 2.0

FriendFeed:Subscribe | Blog:chrisbrogan.com

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3) Corvida

Short Bio: Corvida is an active and passionate blogger. She blogs about the latest news on social networks, social media, and social applications. Corvida is currently a writer for RRW and occasionally guest posts on sites such as, chrisbrogan.com and louisgray.com.

Topics of focus:Social Media, Social Applications, Technology, Web 2.0

FriendFeed:Subscribe | Blog:shegeeks.net

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4) Daniel J. Pritchett

Short Bio: Daniel is a lifelong technology professional and hobbyist. At his day job he builds and analyzes business intelligence systems. He writes about technology, collaboration, and enterprise technologies. He is very active on FriendFeed, and I consider him to be a thoughtful and valued voice to the community.

Topics of focus: Technology, Enterprise, Collaboration, Social Media,

FriendFeed:Subscribe | Blog:sharingatwork.com

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5) Napoleon Dynamite

Short Bio: The story of Daniel Kemp.  One man and his mission to become an Earth Emperor.

Topics of focus: Goofy videos, squashing bugs and the an occasional book review. Really, I don’t know what else to say except that it’s pure comedy.

FriendFeed: Subscribe | Blog:earthemperor.com

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6) Jesse Stay

Short Bio: Jesse is a successful Facebook application developer and marketer. He blogs about technology, social media, microblogging, and Facebook related issues. He is very active, vocal and an intricate part of the FriendFeed community.

Topics of focus: Technology, Social Media,  Applications, Facebook, MicroBlogging

FriendFeed: Subscribe | Blog:staynalive.com

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7) Mark Krynsky

Short Bio: Mark, at his day job is a Web Producer at the X PRIZE Foundation. Mark also blogs about social media and technology. Mark also  guest posts on a variety of sites including mashable and louisgray.com. Mark has become a definitive voice on lifestreaming, and is an invaluable resource to the community.

Topics of focus: Social Media, Applications, Lifestreaming, Technology, Web 2.0

FriendFeed: Subscribe | Blog:lifestreamblog.com

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8 ) Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

Short Bio: Tina, despite the nick, is a very passionate and smart thinking FriendFeed member. She is one of the most active users on FriendFeed. There is never a dull moment on her feed, and you can expect plenty of variety and conversation.

Topics of focus: Current Events, Humor, Technology, Web 2.0

FriendFeed: Subscribe | Blog: isthisstupid.com

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9) Tad Chef

Short Bio: Tad is a search engine optimizer by trade. He is very active in the German SEO community. He writes  informative posts about SEO. You could seriously learn a few things from this guy.

Topics of focus:SEO, Social Media

FriendFeed: Subscribe | Blog: seo2.0.onreact.com

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10) Neal “thePuck” Jansons

Short Bio:Neal is a writer, copywriter, and consultant in new media. A lifelong geek interested in just about everything. He maintains several blogs and is the founder of the Social Media Philosophy Project, an attempt to address the philosophical implications of social media and web 2.0 technologies.

Topics of focus: Social Media, Technology, Web 2.0

FriendFeed: Subscribe | Blog:thepuckwrites.com

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, people to follow on friendfeed

In July I wrote a blog post titled 10 people you should follow on Friendfeed. The list detailed the top 10 people I find the most interesting, according to Friendfeed’s statistics. This time around I’m highlighting 20 more people that I find interesting, and I think that you will too. The post in July was mainly social media/tech people on FriendFeed. This list gives you the best of both worlds on FriendFeed, techie/non techie, and a little something for everyone.

1) Robert Scoble

Short Bio: Robert is a husband, father, blogger, technical evangelist and author. Scoble is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He currently works for Fast Company as a video blogger. There is a reason why Robert is the most followed person in social media.
Topics: Technology, Social Media, Social Applications, Software, Startups
Web: http://scobleizer.com/

2) Mona N

Short Bio: Mona in her own words, “I’m just a regular girl addicted to: Social Media, the Internet, Star Wars, LEGO, and anything with a power switch + USB.” Mona is considered the Queen of FriendFeed, and I happen to agree. Mona is one of the main reasons why FriendFeed is fun, and will achieve mainstream success. Mona posts funny, weird and creative things.You will never find a dull moment when surfing her feed. Subscribing to Mona is a requirement.
Topics: Social Media, Technology, Legos, Toys, Twitter, Bacon, Food, Odd, Funny, Applications, Interesting. A little of everything.
Web: http://pixelbits.wordpress.com/

3) Mark Wilson

Short Bio: Mark has been coined the male version of Mona. Like Mona he posts entertaining, odd, funny and  interesting content. Mark like the rest of us, is a die hard FriendFeeder. He loves FriendFeed so much  that he ” want’s to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant.”
Topics: Music, Odd, Funny, Interesting. His interests run the gamut.
Web: http://markwilson.wordpress.com/

4) Mark Dykeman

Short Bio: Mark is a married IT professional with two children from New Brunswick, Canada. Mark is a very  articulate deep thinker who writes extensively about social media and technology. Mark also guest posts often on Louisgray.com and Mashable.com
Topics: Social Media, Social Applications, Communication, Technology
Web: http://broadcasting-brain.com/

5) Rob Diana

Short Bio: Rob is a software engineer, a husband and a father. Rob writes about social media, technology  and general programming. Rob created and developed Yacktrack.com. He also guest posts on Mashable.com and Louisgray.com
Topics: Social Applications, Social Media, Technology, Software, Programming
Web: http://regulargeek.com/

6) Kyle Lacy

Short Bio: Kyle is an energetic graphic designer who hails from Indiana. Kyle writes about social media and branding. Kyle breeds life on FriendFeed at night. Paired with Mona he is one of the driving forces of the FriendFeed night crew.
Topics: Social Media, Branding, Marketing
Web: http://www.kylelacy.com/

7) Carlos Ayala

Short Bio: Carlos is a technology and multimedia expert from New York, currently residing in Florida. Carlos posts entertaining, odd and interesting things. He also has great taste for Hip Hop and Classic Rock.
Topics: Technology, Random, Funny, Interesting. A little of everything.
Web: http://friendfeed.com/cma3

8 ) Edythe

Short Bio: Edythe Aka Polly R, resides in California.  Last I checked she held the record on FriendFeed for most likes. If Edythe likes it, you know it must be good! She posts entertaining, and interesting things
Topics: Funny, Interesting. A little of everything.
Web: http://friendfeed.com/furry

9) Michael J. Cohen

Short Bio: Michael is an active FriendFeeder and technology buff who resides in Florida. Michael posts a good mixture of entertaining and interesting content.
Topics: Social Media, Technology, Interesting. A little of everything.
Web: http://325i.org/

10) Dobromir Hadzhiev

Short Bio: Dobromir is a web designer and marketing consultant from Bulgaria. Dobromir is one of my human news filters. He constantly shares, stumbles, diggs, and discovers great technology and social media related content.
Topics: Technology, Social Applications, Social Media, Design
Web: http://friendfeed.com/dobata

11) Tamar Weinberg

Short Bio: Tamar is a freelance writer and internet marketing consultant, specializing in viral marketing, and social media. She is a Florida native currently residing in New York. Tamar has written for numerous blogs, including Lifehacker.com and Mashable.com on a variety of subjects, from tech to travel.
Topics: Social Media, Viral Marketing, Technology, SEO. A little of everything.
Web: http://www.techipedia.com/

12) Susan Beebe

Short Bio: Susan is an IT professional from California, currently residing in Rochester, New York. Susan shares a good mixture of technology and social media content. Susan knows a thing or two about IT!
Topics: Social Media, IT, Technology. A little of everything.
Web: http://friendfeed.com/susanbeebe

13) Justin Korn

Short Bio: Justin Korn is a 30 year old web developer, blogger and photographer from Pennsylvania, currently residing in San Francisco, California. Justin’s core passion is photography. I would consider his photography far from amateur. He closely follows in the footsteps of the legend, Thomas Hawk.
Topics: Social Media, Technology, Web Development, Photography
Web: http://blog.justinkorn.com/

14) Erhan Erdogan

Short Bio: Erhan is a blogger residing in Turkey. Erhan blogs about technology and emerging web 2.0 start ups.  He shares a good mixture of social media and technology related content.
Topics: Social Media, Social Applications, Technology
Web: http://friendfeed.com/erhan

15) Rahsheen

Short Bio: Rahsheen is a father,blogger, bodybuilder, singer/songwriter/rapper. You can’t label Rahsheen. The only label Rahsheen needs to see is a record label contract. You can expect an assortment of material on his feed. He blogs about technology, social media, applications, and his personal views on a just about anything.
Topics: Social Media, Social Applications, Technology, A little of everything.
Web: http://sheenonline.biz/

16) Shey Smith

Short Bio: Shey is a graphic designer who was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada. Shey blogs about design, social media, social issues and technology.
Topics: Social Media, Technology, Design, Sports
Web:http://www.sheysmith.com/

17) Nice Fish Films

Short Bio: Michael Wright is a film producer from California. Michael is an active FriendFeeder who’s feed always has something worthy of looking into. Topics: Interesting. A little of everything.Web: http://nicefishfilms.com/blog/

18) Chris Baskind

Short Bio: Chris lives in Florida and is an environmental writer and the Publisher of Vida Verde Media, a green lifestyle company. He’s also a regular contributor to EcoTech Daily. If you want to go green, then I suggest subscribing to Chris.
Topics: Environmental
Web: http://chrisbaskind.com/

19) (Jeff)isageek

Short Bio: Jeff is a married blogger from Kansas. Jeff blogs about social media, software, social applications, and gaming, just to name a few.
Topics: Social Media, Social Applications, Gaming, Technology, Humor,
Web: http://www.jeffisageek.net/blog

20) Duncan Riley

Short Bio: Duncan Riley is a married, father, blogger and technologist from Australia. Duncan wrote for techcrunch.com for a period of time. Duncan currently owns and operates inquisitr.com, a blog that provides a relevant mix of tech, pop culture and odd/ funny news.
Topics: Social Media, Technology, Humor. A little of everything
Web: http://www.inquisitr.com/

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Networking

Now that I have my established lists, the task of organizing begins. With several hundred subscriptions, the keyword is bulk management. FriendFeed allows you to bulk add friends to a desired list. However, it does not allow you to bulk remove friends off your primary home feed. This task is taking a considerable amount of time due to the removal of all my subscribers off my home feed, and into their appropriate lists. Currently this has to be done manually, as there is no bulk removal option in place for taking everyone off your home feed. Overall you will need to spend a decent amount of time organizing your lists to get the most efficiency out of them.

My question is, why and what do I need a home feed for?

Lists help tremendously, but still it is not the end all solution. You can’t truly use lists for topical breakdown because most people talk about multiple topics. This is an observation Mark Trapp voiced in this thread. I absolutely agree with Mark. I’m running into duplication issues now with lists. This is something I am trying to avoid with the elimination of my home feed as a starting point. Keywords would be a perfect solution for this problem. My ideal home feed would and should be based off keyword selection. I suspect we will see this implemented in the future on FriendFeed.

My List Management:

Page A: This is my FriendFeed all star page. Highly active members who I have established connections with and interact with daily. I often network with them on other social networks and platforms. This is my core inner network.

Page B: Members with moderate activity. Moderate for me is not also your posting frequency, but the content you post as well. I usually have a good tolerance level for topics such as politics and religion. However, when it overwhelms my feed, you will have then made it to the b-list.

Page C: Members with low activity. This also serves as a holding tank for members I have yet to classify, and who are newly subscribed to me and vice versa.

My other two categories are Social Media/Tech and Photography. These are self explanatory.

Duplicate detection:

Now when multiple friends share the same link, the set of duplicate entries will only show up once in your feed. There is an added bonus too, as quoted by Brett Taylor.

My favorite part of the dup detection is that it understands URL shorteners, so Tweets about blog posts will dup with the blog post itself. – Bret Taylor

Mike Fruchter friendfeed list organization

The bookmarking system I am referring to is liking something on FriendFeed. Liking an item not only serves as an encouraging vote for the content author, but it also serves as a great bookmarking tool.

In addition, the liking feature performs as a:

• Presence system
• Bookmarking system
• Recognition system

The river of content flows fast and furiously on FriendFeed. Often, I will miss friends’ postings because of this. The like feature has become a necessary bookmarking tool to keep track of everything. The like system on FriendFeed serves the same purpose as a bookmarking service. It allows you to archive and access stored data for consumption at a later point in time. Using the like system as a bookmarker, will considerably help you keep track of your friends’ updates.

For the new people on FriendFeed who don’t quite know their way around. You can access your likes and comment history on the right side of your feed under your selected services.

Your FriendFeed liking history also can be read via rss. At the very bottom of your FriendFeed likes page, you will see an rss icon. Simply copy that link into Google reader and access it anytime.

Your rss feed will look like this: http://friendfeed.com/fruchter/likes?format=atom

Replace fruchter with your user name. If you follow me on FriendFeed, feel free to add my likes feed into your Google Reader. FriendFeed gives you an rss option for just about everything you do on the site. It’s a great way to get the best of your FriendFeed in Google Reader.

The “liking” feature also functions as an indicator of who is online. It is sort of a FriendFeed presence system. This is the best method for me, to gauge who is active at any given time on FriendFeed. In this river, you need to stand out. Consistent liking and contributing will get your name out there. The more I see your name, the more I take notice. Expect me to visit your feed and like bookmark things of interest.

Mike Fruchter bookmarking system, Friendfeed, social bookmarking, Social Media

I posted a few days ago on FriendFeed about wanting to get more social with my bookmarking. I primarily was referring to using all the features of Diigo to their full extent. One of which is the ability to comment on bookmarks. Hutch Carpenter recently commented on some of my Diigo bookmarks. This is what partially spurred this experiment. I rarely take part in the social aspect of commenting on bookmarks on Diigo or any of the other bookmarking websites. With the advent of bookmarking toolbars and browser plugins, one never has to actually go to the services website to collaborate on there latest finds. For most of us, this is fine as we use these services as link repositories, and feel no need to converse about our bookmarks.

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Having the ability to share bookmarks on FriendFeed has truly put the social back into social bookmarking. To some, the true definition of social bookmarking is not only the opportunity to contribute, but to have the opportunity to comment and converse.I say to to each their own. Use social bookmarking as you see fit, at least your using it to suit a purpose. This is what makes FriendFeed such an invaluable tool for social bookmarking.

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The concept of this experiment into social bookmarking, discovery and conversation is similar to the one I did in June. This time, instead of sharing Google reader feeds, I created a room for the sharing of bookmarks only. This is a focus room, group open to anyone who wants to participate. This is a group where you and I can focus in on other members’ bookmarks. A random assortment of bookmarks where you never know what you will find. Bookmarks are often considered quality content, pertaining to whatever the subject matter may be. It should be interesting to see what is shared in this room. Bookmarks are very telling of a person’s mindset, education, and interests. Please feel free to contribute, converse, collaborate in this social bookmarking profiling experiment with me.

To contribute, add your your bookmarking rss feed to the comments on this blog, or on the FriendFeed thread. Bookmark link feeds can be from Delicious, Diggo or any bookmark service that gives you an rss feed of your links.

The Share your bookmarks FriendFeed room is located here.

I hope to collaborate with Yuvi at some point for an in depth statistical analysis of the data.

Mike Fruchter bookmarks, delicious, Diigo, Friendfeed, social bookmarking, Social Media

Created by Ray Grieselhuber, Gridjit uses the FriendFeed & Twitter API extensively to create an interactive social portal home page.  It visually organizes your FriendFeed and Twitter time lines into columns. It spreads out your time line by user, and shows that users’ most recent posts, in arrangeable blocks, distributed vertically across the grid.

This could be your new home page, social portal.

Gridjit Features:

• Content streams displayed in three vertical columns as opposed to one vertical column.
• Visualization of your conversations on a clean layout, with arrangeable blocks of content.
• Displays of the latest messages according to user, instead of in chronological order.
• Ability to like, comment and post directly to FriendFeed & Twitter.
• Drill through other people’s view on the web by clicking on their usernames and the people they “@” tag

Grid of people I currently follow on FriendFeed.

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This grid consists of the current content I’m sharing on FriendFeed.

In addition to liking and commenting, you can post directly to FriendFeed and Twitter without ever leaving the Gridjit portal

Gridjit is currently in the private alpha stage. With that being said, the services and  feature set is relatively small. I’m sure it will go grow in time. The site looks promising, and it will be very interesting watching how it evolves.

Request an invite code by visting Gridjit and submitting your email address.

Mike Fruchter api, Friendfeed, gridjit, Twitter, visual

I am always on the search for the latest and greatest social media applications. I am often too quick to sign up for a service based solely on hype. Perhaps most of us technophiles are an easy sell. Mention the word “beta” and you have a new instant subscriber, no questions asked. Whether or not I stick around with the service is a different story. Most of the beta applications and sites I sign up for are just for establishing a presence on that network. Often these sites will lack innovation, and never attract an active user base. Often these services stay in beta. They usually die a silent slow web 2.0 death. The ones that pull ahead and start to establish themselves will  continue to receive my support. An example of this is Toluu.

What is Streamulo.us?

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Quite simply put, Streamulo.us, which is currently in private pre-alpha (omega?) testing, is the aggregator for all your aggregators. It is the lifestream for your lifestreams. It’s the…ok, ok, you get it. It’s pretty darn amazing.

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Within a few hours it took on a life of it’s own. It was shared, bookmarked and discussed throughout FriendFeed and Twitter. Daniel took it a step further, adding an invite form! This was for all you early adapters to signup for “pre-alpha testing.”

Prominent blogger, Jennifer Van Grove was skeptical at first and nearly fell for it. Justin Korn fell for it as well and realized shorty after that something was not kosher. Hao Chen was blinded, but he quickly realized that something was not kosher. I must say thank you to Hao Chen for being a good sport, and because he also coined the saying ” I’ve been shiny-object-rolled.”

While this was a very interesting insight into the power of social media, it shows that a majority of us are always searching for that next new shiny toy. We all to often get caught up in the hype, and will believe anything that’s thrown at us with little or no source checking. Some times we need to sit back and take things in, let them marinate a bit, before rushing to be on the front lines.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Media, viral marketing

Last week I decided to stray from the herd on FriendFeed. My mission was to spend five days getting to know the people that I follow better. For five days I only commented, liked and shared content of individuals in my member circle. For the most part the experiment was a success. My mistake was only doing this for 5 days. In actuality I should of did it for 30 days. This would of exposed me to more members in my circle who are not active on FriendFeed every day. Five days limited me to only those who were on FF at the same time as me. Thirty days would have given me a broader experience.

It was an interesting five days. The first day was the most challenging. I spent the night before loading a fresh new Google reader account. This was filled with 80 rss feeds from members that are subscribed to me. These feeds are from members who I seldom interact or engage with on FriendFeed. The non stop, flowing river on FriendFeed is partly to blame.  The rest is due to their low activity on FriendFeed, or activities that simply do not interest me, such as streams of twitter or britekite broadcasts. I figured 80 blogs was enough to supplement my social consumption for 5 days. The problem I often ran into was finding new content. The majority of blogs were not regularly updated for days, even months. I’m partly to blame. I should have clearly stated I was looking for blogs with a higher update frequency. I often had to resort back to my, most recently analyzed trusted Google Reader to fill the void. That was easy because the majority of the content I already share on a daily basis comes from members that are in my member circle such as, Louis Gray, Steve Hodson, Corvida to name just a few.

Within the time frame I established of five days, I allowed myself to steer away from the herd, and roam into uncharted areas. I dug deep into this focus group of blogs. The Discovery phase was the fun part. I often found myself looking through pages and archives to find the gold nuggets I was looking for. The nugget had to shine or at the very least spark some sort of interest, and make a connection with me. I ended up finding and learning some great things about the people I follow, as much as one can through a blog or FriendFeed. Michael Nielsen explained to me, Why the world needs quantum mechanics. Bill Sodeman wrote on how to Fix the DNS security hole with OpenDNS. Andy Brudtkuhl had his Twitter account deleted for no apparent reason. Daynah Introduced me to the creative world of scrap booking. I also learned Mona has an obsession with bacon. These are just a few of the examples that I otherwise would not have discovered, and most likely would have floated by me in the river.

Discovering new blogs and content was one aspect of it. On FriendFeed I actively looked for members in my circles online, and took part in as many conversations as possible. My liking of content was more selective, and I geared it towards the members in my circle that are often overlooked. It’s amazing how much great content is hidden on feeds that are seldom seen on FriendFeed. I tried as much as possible to shine some light on these hidden treasures. Sharing through Google reader and using the FriendFeed Bookmarklet helped shine some light on these feeds. The power of foaf also works in mysterious ways. For the five days I turned off foaf, this slowed the river down for me, allowing me to focus on my member circle with more clarity and less disruption.

Overall for the 5 days it was a success. My level of engagement on FriendFeed was more enlightened and fulfilling. I also have found a few silent members that I need to make sure I follow a little more closely. If anything has come out of this little experiment, it’s the new faces that now appear on my radar. Not just a one time fly by anymore, but they now have become reoccurring blips on my screen.

Five days has given me limited results. I plan on keeping up with this experiment for at least 30 days for a more thorough analysis. Stay tuned.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Media, Social Networking

This idea was inspired from this post by J. Phil of scribkin.com. The idea is simple, and I think will be very rewarding.

When I first joined FreindFeed in February, it was easy to maintain a normal balance of my friends and their activities. This was easy because my number of subscriptions was low. Five months later, over 330+ people are subscribed to me, and I have reciprocated back to about the same number. The core group of people I follow are great. They provide tremendous value to me with the content and conversations they create, contribute and participate in. I often find myself on FriendFeed sticking to and staying close to the herd I follow. While there is nothing wrong with this, it’s coming at an expense which is isolation.

I feel like I have isolated myself and a lot of subscribers by sticking to the herd. I very often will visit the blogs, like content, comment or share the content of people who are newly subscribed to me. This has become a nearly impossible task, to keep up with over 330+subscriptions. Google reader helped tremendously in this task when my member circle and rss feed count was lower. I currently have about 300+ feeds in Google reader & Toluu alone. In some respect it has become what I feared the most, quantity and not quality. The time has come for me to broaden my horizons on FriendFeed and stray from the pack.

This will last for 5 days beginning midnight tonight 7/29.

The Objective: To participate only in my circle of 330 friends. Sorry foafs. This entails only liking and commenting on content from members that are subscribed to me. Now the noticeable change will be in the content I share via Google reader, and the content I post via bookmarking using Diigo and the Friendfeed bookmarklet. The content I share must come from a members blog that is subscribed to me on Friendfeed. The usual content from the trusted sources such as Duncan Riley, Louis Gray, Hutch Carpenter, Steve Hodson and Sarah Parez will still be shared on my feed for the next 5 days. Not only because I like their writing, but more importantly because they are subscribed to me on Friendfeed and part of my member circle. Begining tommorow and lasting 5 days, I will actively share content from a majority of members blogs I have never seen, much less visited. I will have the same level of engagement with my conversations, comments and liking.

I have set up a new Google Reader account for this purpose. This account is only for member blogs that are subscribed to me. Going through 330+ members profile is not feasible, so I started this thread on FriendFeed asking members in my circle to post their blogs. If you subscribe to me and publish a blog, please list it in this thread.

The Goal: To broaden my horizons and to truly get to know the people that follow me better. I hope after 5 days, my level of engagement on FriendFeed will be more enriched and fufilling. I will post a follow up once the 5 days are over.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed

Michael Harris recently posted on his blog, “Should I unsubscribe from people who don’t follow me back?”

Felix, a member on FriendFeed, recently released a handy little FriendFeed script called FriendVenn.

The script tells you 3 important things:

• People who you subscribe to, and people who do not reciprocate.
• People who subscribe to you and who reciprocate.
  
• People who only subscribe to you.

000000

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In the early stages of my experience in social networking, I had very little criteria for subscriptions. You subscribed to me, and I reciprocated. Looking back, that was purely a numbers game. Nowadays I have become more selective with whom I follow on the various social networking sites. I primarily follow people with the same interests as me, whether it’s social media, applications, baseball or boxers. The underlying theme is interests and content value. What value do you bring me? What value do I bring you? Value comes in different forms. It could be the content you are sharing, content you created, or comments you have made. I will not blindly follow or follow for bragging purposes on who has the most followers. I would rather have quality then quantity when it comes to my virtual friends and networks.

The chart above reiterates that fact. There are people who do not reciprocate, and I am totally fine with that. Why? Because they bring to me consistent quality content. Will they reciprocate back? Probably not, if they have not done so by now. Quality speaks for itself and should require no reciprocation. If I lived by the 2 way reciprocation law, I would unsubscribe from them, and I still would be able see their content through FOAF’S. On Friendfeed, when I subscribe to someone, I don’t need or expect instant reciprocation,or gratification. It’s a nice feeling, but not a requirement. I subscribed to Louis Gray shortly after discovering Friendfeed in February. It was 2+ months later that Louis reciprocated back. Louis did not blindly follow me back, It took time for him to recognize quality and value, and then reciprocate. The only way to get earned reciprocation is by contribution. I try to contribute quality topic related content , via blog posts, shared content, comments, likes, bookmarks and other related media as often as I can.

This leads me to the followability factor in social networking. What criteria prompts you to subscribe or follow a member?

• Affiliations
• Quality of content
• Quality of conversations
• Similar interests
• Popularity
• Recommendations
• Networking
  

Are you expecting reciprocation?

Related reads:

The Talk About Rules for Social Following Is Getting Out of Hand

Mike Fruchter

I wrote a post a little over a week ago titled “The ticking time bomb awaiting Friendfeed.”  I talked about how Friendfeed will become a spammer’s new tool, more specifically on how they could monetize on their efforts using rooms on Friendfeed. Spam on social networking sites and applications is nothing new, it just comes in different flavors. Comment spamming, profile spamming, instant messaging spam etc.

Spammers finding Friendfeed is inevitable. The first flavor of spam, comment spam appeared on Friendfeed last night on various members feeds. I saw it first on one of Steve Hodsons threads. The community acted swiftly and within minutes Amber alerts, spammer alerts were sounded and black lists were created. Bret Taylor of Friendfeed reacted quickly and terminated the spammers account. Friendfeed is still a small fish in the social sea compared to Facebook and Myspace. I think community policing works great in small numbers. The dynamics change completely when you go from a few thousand active users compared to a few million. In my opinion, Friendfeed will become a household name such as Facebook or Myspace, as for when, who knows.  It is then that I can see social networking spam becoming a major headache on Friendfeed. We still have some time before  that scale of spamming infiltrates Friendfeed. Content aggregator sites will become the most powerful tool for the next generation of spammers lying in wait. Friendfeed will be a major catalyst for this.

Friendfeed needs a flagging mechanism put into place, such as is implemented on Craigslist. I would also like to see visible “report or flag this” link on all member feeds and rooms. I also like Robert Scobles suggestion quoted below.

“An algorithm for block spam here on FriendFeed: if an account has x more blocks than subscribers put the account into jail where it won’t show up in anything others than the jail. I don’t like Facebook’s policy of deleting stuff. Just move it to jail.”

I could not get a screen shot of last nights spam, due to the spammers account being deleted along with all the offending comment spam. I did find another instance of comment spam on Friendfeed as shown below.
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Spammers will invade Friendfeed at some point at what level, that remains to be seen. It’s too early to tell at this stage of the game. Friendfeed needs to implement the tools and mechanisms now while in the early stages, rather then playing catch up later on. Give the community the tools, and the community will use them.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, social networking spam, spam

Mike Fruchter

Last night I blogged about 10 people you should follow on Friendfeed. This morning when I awoke and checked my email, I was pleasantly surprised. My inbox was flooded with 70+ new subscribers. 70+ new editors, who for the most part, (I) think share a majority of the same interests as I do.  As you have become my editor, I now have become yours. I think we share a majority of the same interests in technology and social media, presumably that’s what prompted you to subscribe to me. Surely it could not have been my distant side profile picture, or my last name which sounds like a curse word some of us might use too often. Our connection for the most part is an excellent example of silent social networking.

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This silent type of social interaction is a crucial element needed to make up a well balanced social echo chamber. On Friendfeed we do this mainly by liking a participants contributions, and sharing and re-sharing their content, usually through applications such as bookmarklets or Google Reader. One more example would be a type of online rating star or vote system.

This is a great example of how, and why this medium can be so powerful. This example being so virtual, still in some ways feels remarkably personal. The last phase of this new partnership is discovery. I get to discover close to 70+ new content feeds, flickr feeds, blogs, bookmarks etc. In addition to new content, we both introduce each other to thousands of FOAFS who we otherwise would never have known existed. 

Thank you new Friends, I look forward to seeing all of you on Friendfeed.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Networking

On Friendfeed, I am currently subscribed to 190 people. This post lists the top 10 people I find the most interesting, according to Friendfeed. If you share the same general interests in social media as I do, you should consider subscribing to their feeds. If you are currently subscribed to me on Friendfeed, then you should already be seeing there feeds courtesy of Friendfeeds FOAF feature.

1) Louis Gray

Short Bio: Louis is a 31 year old technology blogger, and as of recent, father of newborn twins. In his day job, he works in corporate marketing for a Silicon Valley technology company.
Topics: Web 2.0, Social Applications, RSS, lifestreaming, Aggregation, Twitter, Friendfeed
Web: http://www.louisgray.com/live/

2) Hutch Carpenter

Short Bio: Hutch is a reformed banker and MBA who has been in the technology industry since 2000. Hutch recently left BEA Systems, where he did product marketing for its suite of Web 2.0 apps for the enterprise: wikis, blogs, mashups, widgets, and social search.
Topics: Web 2.0, Social Applications, Social Media, Enterprise, Friendfeed
Web: http://bhc3.wordpress.com

3) J. Phil

Short Bio: J. Phil is the webmaster of scribkin.com,”The site where code and culture converge”. The site focuses on social applications, social media bookmarking and networking sites, as well as creating primers on Web 2.0 applications.
Topics: Social Applications, Social Media, Social Bookmarking, Friendfeed, Twitter
Web: http://www.scribkin.com

4) Mitchell Tsai

Short Bio: Mitchell was a child prodigy who began college at age 10. He is currently retired. He was founder and CEO of DotCom Director, a venture capital accelerator that invests in and/or raises capital for technology companies.
Topics: Start-Ups, VC, Social Media, Social Applications, Friendfeed, Photography, Travel
Web: http://spiritualbusinesscompanions.blogspot.com

5) Franklin Pettit

Short Bio: Franklin Pettit is a South Carolina software developer. His blog was recently “Louis Grayed.”
Topics: Microblogging, Firefox and Extensions, Web/Social Applications
Web: http://www.fpettit.com

6) Charlie Anzman

Short Bio: Charlie Anzman runs SEO and Tech Daily. He is a skilled, SEO, SEM consultant.
Topics: Start-Ups, SEO, Analytics, Web 2.0, Social Applications
Web: http://anzman.blogspot.com

7) Steven Hodson

Short Bio: Steve Hodson is the webmaster of winextra.com. Steve is a die hard technologist with over 20 + years experience in the computer industry. Topics: Web 2.0, Web/Social Applications, Social Media, Friendfeed, Twitter Web: http://www.winextra.com

8 ) Tim Hoeck

Short Bio: Tim Hoeck is a coder, highly skilled in most programming languages. He currently works for a technology corporation, as a technical support trainer.
Topics: Analytics, Social Bookmarking, Mashups, Aggregation,
Web: http://timhoeck.com

9) Sarah Perez

Short Bio: Sarah has been blogging about technology since 2004. She had worked as an I.T. professional up until recently when she became a full-time professional blogger. She now works full time for the website Read Write Web and Microsoft’s Channel 10.
Topics: Microblogging, Social Applications, Social Media, Social Bookmarking, Friendfeed, Twitter
Web: http://www.sarahintampa.com

10) Mark Trapp

Short Bio: Mark is a IT manager for a graphic design company located in NY. Mark adds tremendous insight, and thought provoking commentary.
Topics: Culture, Politics, Social Applications, Social Media, (Mixture of topics)
Web: http://friendfeed.itafroma.com

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Media, Social Networking

With the steady growth that Friendfeed is experiencing, it’s just a matter of time before the problem of spam infiltrates it.Friendfeed is still the shiny new toy that only the people in the know, know about. Because of this, the critical masses and the spammers have not caught on quite yet. The clock is ticking….

The convenient 6 click registration form makes it’s easy for spammers to sign up for “disposable accounts”, and to set up shop in seconds. The smarter spammers will use scripts to automate the sign up process. This will allow them to create several hundred or more throw away accounts at any given time.

The spammers have an arsenal of forty one services at there disposal. Any one of these services can be set up and deployed in seconds. Rooms can be created for any topic or product imaginable. It wont be long before the Viagra spam email of the day arrives and is directing us to the Viagra room on Friendfeed.

Friendfeed gives the spammers multiple ways of getting a message out. The most common would be to post the spam-vertised sites directly to the feed. The handy Friendfeed bookmarklet would accomplish this with ease. The rooms would be filled with link bait galore, allowing spammers more ways to monetize courtesy of, RSS feeds injected with AdSense as one example. The purveyors of porn might stand to monetize the most. They can take full advantage of full multimedia, using video clips, images, text and now even audio, making their rooms into free mini adult porn sites. Rooms have made the possibilities endless. The spammers will pick up on this soon enough.

The community, up to this point, has a done an excellent job of policing itself. What I would like to see is some type of flagging mechanism put into place, such as is implemented on Craigslist. I would also like to see visible “report or flag this” links on all member feeds and rooms.

What other forms of spam will Friendfeed face?

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Media, spam