Each of these online communication platforms is useful for different things.
Fastest and dirtiest is twitter. But my stream is mostly mundane trivia, cryptic comments, product promotion, and other assorted crap.
Facebook is probably best for most people. Fast, easy, friendly. … But realize that only friends, or friends of friends, will likely see what you post.
Personally I like blogs. If you can find the best ones in your areas of interest, they are the best source of information on the WWW.
For example, I follow these blogs religiously:
- Apple news - Daring Fireball
- Outdoor excitement - The Adventure Blog
- Internet & social media – Mashable
But writing and reading blogs like those and this one are time consuming. And you need to find the perfect blogs for your own interests.
The hippest blogging platform as we enter 2011 is tumblr, a micro blog. … more advanced than twitter or Facebook, but with far fewer features than normal blogs. … I often link to Amy’s tumblr blog – The All Around.
Forums are the ultimate. The only platform good for conversation. But being active in a forum is the most time consuming of all. And you sometimes need to wade through a lot of dreck to find the rare gem.
Lifehacker (a terrific blog) in June 2010 picked their 5 favourite platforms: Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, SquareSpace & Posterous.
Leave a comment if I missed listing an equally good option.
Are you a blogger?
If you use Facebook, I’d say you are. … A micro-blogger.
Update:
Kristal S. Boulden (@ksboulden) just started a new blog – Double Front – choosing WordPress.com. Her niche will be gymnastics vis-a-vis digital culture and social media. (blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
Thanks Full Twist for the introduction. I’ve subscribed.
7 comments ↓
Hey Rick! Thanks for featuring my new blog, Double Front. Like you said, there are so many social networking tools out there and they really do serve different purposes and audiences.
These tools have given gymnastics fans the opportunity to report on news and connect with other fans in a way that wasn’t possible before. With a sport like gymnastics– that doesn’t have a “season” and doesn’t get loads of traditional media coverage–social media serves as the best way to report on news and correspond with other fans. And sites like YouTube allow fans to access media that was previously unavailable or had limited access.
I personally like Twitter and blogging for connecting with other people. With Twitter, it’s easy to connect with a larger, international audience. And of course with blogging, you can write posts and long comments like this!
Thanks again!
Don’t forget that there are RSS readers like GoogleReader which makes reading multiple blogs much easier
I really like Tumblr, but I do wish it was slightly more comment-friendly. For example, to allow people to comment on my posts, I have to end the post in a question, and then check a box saying “Allow replies?” or something like that. So…I wish people could just reply. But I really like that layout design (pretty colors!) and the ease of posting photo/video/link/text, etc, so I haven’t decided to switch to another platform. It is definitely in the back of my mind though!
Bunch of observations.
1. I need an RSS reader (and saying it exists or the kids are using it is not sufficient). Lots of dummies like me that find following blogs time consum,ing ecayse of the checking back and forth, espeically for comments.
2. Blogs should have a feature where you can turn the chronology around and read from old to new. Often when I find a new blog, I want to at least scan in this direction to see how an idea has developed.
3. WWGym and GGMB are very peculiar in that they are forums that prevent EVEN VIEWING without registration. I find this bizarre especially for WWGym, and probably just since they are a GGMB offshoot and somehow thing that is normal. But really limits use by lurkers or reqruitment of new members. And is pretty damned far from normal and no good reason, given their community and what it does, to have that feature. For instance there are lots of good cycling blogs and I can totally get awesome discussion on doping scandals. And they’re not closed to viewing.
TCO – don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time…don’t do it.
There is a blog section of WWGYM that can be viewed without registration – some of it’s pretty good. One guy did a routine breakdown for almost every MAG EF finalist in Rotterdam.
GGMB membership is by invitation only.
All the boards except GGMB will initially accept anybody but spambots… So there really isn’t much of a barrier to viewing the content.
GymWorld and TAAF also cannot be viewed with registering – so the majority of gym message boards (at least for English speakers) are set up this way. IG used to be this way until recently.
Back on topic – Double Front sounds like a great blog. I poked around in it and discovered a link to some body’s masters thesis on the Paul Hamm 2004 controversy.
It’s a gym world thing, but it’s bizarre. Almost no other forums are like that.
I’m doing my time. I’m here, right.
i personally use tumblr- they have a had a few hiccups lately but i love the format and simplicity
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