Confused about social media. Part I

These are the top three, but there's also LinkedIn and Flickr and so many variations. There's TweetDeck which allows you to enter one and update many at once, and what about MSN? Tired yet? Overwhelmed? Whelmed at least? I get it. I feel it. We get a choice to 'like' people on FB or 'follow' others' tweets. I get to link with others, and create fan pages and try to keep up with real friends and the hundreds of others who ...um....aren't exactly friends.

I'm pondering how to keep pace.
And I'm pondering more things about time and timing and media which is social.

Did you live in the time when people first started receiving FAXes? it was an immediate office-stopper. "Hey, everybody, somebody, there is a FAX coming through." The beep would get us; the information was often of some significance. Information then was mostly linear, and an interruption or two was acceptable.

Then in about 1994 I started using AOL. Some friends were on compuserve or prodigy. The internet allowed us to send and receive messages. You could even have instant chats with people wherever there were, as long as they were 'on' at the same time. I began to look for people on my IM list when I logged on. IM chat made things a lot easier and almost more immediate and personal. I even stayed up late at night and could 'speak' with others in other time zones, for free!

But, the demand was minimal. Internet activity was relegated to the time when I turned on my computer on the desk either at the office or home. Once the internet and portability were merged, on the laptop and now the smartphone.. demand increased and private time was lost.

No wonder people are confused.
No wonder I'm whelmed most days.

There are many answers to the questions and the whelmed feelings. We'll talk about those in the next blog.