Broken Social Media Feedback
[via nytimes.com]
This post is for mah nerds.
Twitter wants me to Tweet It. Google wants me to Buzz It. Facebook wants me to Like It. I have my own blog [welcome] and I enjoy comments on it. I used to have Google Reader, but Buzz and Reader don't sync very well so I Dropped It. I can comment on anything. I can provide feedback for anyone. I can Like, Tweet, and Buzz all day, not to mention comment on any article on any website I frequent.
I can write something here and it'll post to a number of sites I enjoy [thanks Posterous]. What's great is that I can get feedback on it from multiple sources at any time. And feedback is important. It's commonly held that discussion, sharing opinions, and constructive criticism contribute to a better community by improving the qualities of the individual.
But social media feedback is broken. Each unique social ecosystem has its own feedback method that never returns to the source - it stays in its own system. For instance, this blog post will appear to people [who care] in a number of ways:
- This will pop up in someone's Twitter feed.
- This will show up in Facebook [I think]. Or, at least people can "Like It".
- People following this RSS will see it in Google Reader or in any number of RSS compilers.
- Those subscribed to this Posterous may see it in their subscriptions.
- This should show up in Buzz, too.
Each one of the mentioned social networks has its own feedback system. You can respond to a tweet. You can like and comment on a post in Facebook. You can comment and share it in Reader and Buzz [they don't sync too well so I count them as unique]. And, you can just comment on the post itself in Posterous. I can think of two ways to view all the feedback.
- Go through each system uniquely and check for updates [this is just stupid].
- Apply an email notification system [most systems offer this feature] to alert you of any feedback.
I'm not a fan. I get enough email as it is. And even if the email alert notifications were efficient and quick, they wouldn't address the issue: each feedback loop is housed in its own system, eliminating discussion and all the other good things we established as benefits of social networks, in general.
Is there a way to do the following?
- Provide original content.
- Open it for feedback to multiple social media networks.
- Standardize the commenting so that a response on Twitter and a comment on Facebook can show up in my Posterous.
- Then, when I comment on their feedback [enter discussion] in Posterous, it reflects back to the respective social networks, including people from other systems in the discussion.
Probably not.
By the way, my solution in the meantime is to force* the audience into my ecosystem, which will be this Posterous. *By force, I intend to comment only on this post.
Silly, I know.
Now I didn't log in to Posterous (wow, been a long time...) to just simply comment "I agree!".... I wanted to ask what that powerpoint/flowchart had to do with this post haha. Is it to represent how complicated and confused each of our online presence is? I loved how General McCrystal saw it with incredulity and said, "When we understand that thing, we'll have won the war."
But, I do know what the picture was originally used for and the quote you mentioned is an instant classic.