What’s going on in social media?
I actually do feel a little more connected. Like the slideshow about the connections people have, most of the connections are temporary. But not all of them.
I’m following six people on Twitter now. Some big names, some not as big. Anderson Cooper (over 2,000,000 followers), Kathy Griffin, Erin Burnett, Bill Maher, and a couple people who’s YouTube videos I subscribe to: Freddie Wong and thunderf00t (only 8,145 followers).
The ability to click on hashtags to see what’s being tweeted about is almost overwhelming. Bill Maher tweets about Rick Santorum (#santorum) and clicking on that brings such a deluge of reading material. It’s easy to see losing yourself in the time it takes to read. I have to use caution; it’s always been easy for me to miss noticing the passing of a few hours when I’m caught up in something.
No tweets yet. I’ll probably start retweeting to start. As far as I know, nobody I know as a friend in real life uses Twitter.
Reddit seems absolutely crazy. Top stories are often interesting, but the comments people make on them are the real entertainment. Given the voting, the good ones stand out, while the bad or negative ones whither. If you want to see the bad ones, you have to click to see them. I like that.
I haven’t submitted any stories yet. But it’s not like I would be a seeker of karma anyway. Again, this can be a total time sink. I’ve applied it to a different website, but I think it is applicable: “Reddit is a black hole which will destroy all your free time.”
Not much done with Flickr. I’ve put up some photos my aunt sent me—with her permission. Three cat photos and one of her new TV. I went ahead and allowed Flickr to use my Facebook account to see who had accounts; two people did, both of whom I went to elementary school with. But neither of them have posted new photos in a long while.
My photos have been viewed once, but honestly? That might have been me; I don’t know if me looking at them counts.
Now the wiki, that one I’m personally most excited about. After putting up a new page to index the first book of the Misfile webcomic, I mentioned my activity on the Misfile forum, hoping to lure more people in. I know some people have taken a look. There is definitely more activity now than there has been for months.
Shirky pointed out that if the people to care about Wikipedia were to suddenly stop, Wikipedia would disappear almost instantly. Vandals and trolls would destroy every page they could find. The Misfile wiki hasn’t been destroyed by vandals, but it’s more because the people who might destroy it have richer targets than a small wiki devoted to a webcomic. The community which might prevent its vandalism isn’t active. I’ll see if I can help change that.
Fortunately, my first objective of making an index of the comic is off to a good start. And I’ve saved a lot of typing by using the index already on the Misfile forums. I found the index there unsatisfying for what I wanted, which is why I did something different. The forum’s index includes a memorable line of dialogue from the page, with the goal of being able to find a specific page through that. I wanted an index that told you who was appearing on that page.
So that sums up what I’ve done. What’s next?
I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and do some tweets. I’m going to start with retweeting interesting things I find, and I think that will require expanding who I follow.
With Reddit, I think I’m doing about as much as I can. I’ll continue reading stories and comments, and voting up and down according to my tastes.
Flickr is going to get more photos. I’m going to start with ones I have of my dog. Also, I’m going to have to take more photos.
I’ll continue to expand the Misfile wiki, but I think I’m going to have to do other things than the index to keep it fun. I hope other will join in.
