I am not new to online networks. I've been on Twitter since 2008, and Facebook since 2007. At last count, I have two and a half personal twitter accounts (one private, one public and one shared with my partner) as well as a work one. I have a facebook profile (personal) and a facebook page (professional), LinkedIn, tumblr, about.me, Google+ and two instagrams (personal and work). I’m a member of several yahoo groups (including the School Librarians’ Network), I’ve set up an online group for my local school librarians' network, I’ve got at least two (semi) active blogs (as well as a string of abandoned ones), a livejournal, dreamwidth, soundcloud, bandcamp, 8tracks, My Jam, mixcloud, MySpace, goodreads, librarything, Path, diaspora* (that's not a footnote, that asterisk is part of the name), SnapChat (I'm not a fan), Skype, Viber, What's app, FaceTime, and a partridge in a pear tree. I have spread myself rather too thinly across social networks with the result that most of them languish abandoned and unused. I think I need to learn to focus!
I have, in the past, been much more active on both Twitter and Facebook. I find Twitter a good way to quickly connect or have brief conversations with people, or to ask the Twitter hive mind a question, but I tend to get overwhelmed by the enormity of information on there which puts me off engaging as much as I used to. I have a Facebook page for my professional persona, but I mainly use it to promote this blog. The professional online networks I currently find the most useful are the School Librarians' Network (a Yahoo group that has been going since 1998!) and a Wiggio group that I set up last month to connect my local school librarians' network.
As part of this Thing, I have joined a few more Facebook groups and subscribed to a few more Twitter lists (Twists?). I haven't had a chance to really go in depth with them, so it remains to be seen how useful I will find these for professional purposes. I look forward to finding out.
#rudaí23 #thing5
That's a serious list of social networks! It's a good exercise to write them all down, I might try it myself and maybe cull a few.
Yes, it was useful to get them all in a list, and to re-think about which ones might be worth revisiting, and which ones to just forget about!
I’m surprised that I haven’t heard many librarians talking about the social network diaspora*, given it’s central tenets of Decentralisation, Freedom and Privacy: https://diasporafoundation.org/
Hi
I can completely recognise your situation, as I'm in a very similar one myself! There are so many choices, it can be hard to focus.
I found an interesting article a while ago that attempted to define what is meant by a "network" and a "community". The network is something of which you are a part, but it has many people from all kinds of backgrounds in it. A community tends to be centred around one area of expertise (such as literacy). I tend to think of facebook as a network, where I can communicate with friends and family, and you just never know what will come out of it. I see twitter as more of a community thing (or in my case, a place where I am part of several communities), where I can ask questions, create and/or share items of interest to people that I know have similar interests to me.
At least Google Plus is more or less out of the picture as a social network now, so it's getting less crowded! (I still like the community aspects on there, though!)
The Rudai23 Team
Hi Wayne, thanks again for commenting. This is the third time I have tried to reply to your comment - they keep disappearing into the ether!
I think Facebook has aspects of both network and community - Facebook Groups definitely fit the above definition of a community, and although I have yet to use them extensively professionally, I have used them a fair bit for hobbies and personal interests.
Have you ever looked at diaspora*? If you like the Circles on G+, you might like the Aspects on diaspora*. It looks like a pretty great social network, although my feed suffers from even worse tumbleweed than G+.
