Basically, social service nowadays seem hellbent on having us share our lives and connect with more and more people. I don’t want that, and I’m betting a lot of you feel the same way: we want to deepen our relationships with our current friends, share details of our lives with the friends who are most likely interested in those particular details, and so on.
A lot of the brouhaha over FBs aggressive more-sharing push has been over privacy, but in the rush to protest “ZOMG, I don’t want my mom to know THAT!” the complementary concerns of narrowcasting have been largely ignored. I’m personally a lot less worried about someone finding out something I don’t want them to know about, and far more concerned about burning out my friends with info they find irrelevant and uninteresting.
Is it not madness that I can’t post a note joking about a local politician just to my Mountain View friends? This highlights one of a great many situations in which there are no privacy issues (I’m not trying to keep my bad sense of humor a secret from my friends in Europe), but rather that my friends outside MV aren’t likely to care about this topic. And worse yet, these friends will likely stop reading my posts altogether unless I either post less overall (a bummer!) or magically somehow write entries that are appealing and relevant across my diverse group of friends (pretty impossible).
* * *
I think I speak for most of us non-hermit’y types in noting that:
- Our sphere of acquaintances and friends is growing at an astonishing rate… due to the awesome people we meet online, at work, via friends, from family members, etc.
- We have an innate desire to stay in touch with many of these folks and to share interesting and relevant stuff with them.
- Relationships are not symmetrical, nor are the related communications desires! I may hang on the every brilliant and witty word of a friend, but she may be, um, less fascinated with my mutterings (while still wanting to keep in touch with me overall)
- There should be easier ways for us to finetune who (and what groups) we share with and who we hear from… beyond the scope of privacy considerations.
- For instance, it’d be awesome to be able to tell our computer: “I want to share this musing with my friends who love hiking and are within 20 miles of Mountain View” or, conversely, “Highlight messages from friends who live nearby me and aren’t talking about politics.”
* * *
What do you think?
- Do you share my interests in narrowcasting?
- Or do I have an unusually large addressbook and/or overly geeky demands re: sharing and filtering?
- Are you familiar with any services that are helping folks connect more deeply vs. broadly?
i first noticed a similar need while using friendfeed. I wanted my feed streams to be subject oriented, since I already knew that i would not follow a whole feed by someone else about too many things i don’t care about, example: things i will never see in my life, the pubs where they are hanging out, their horse riding reviews, etc.
ReplyDeleteanother thing is that most of the times i don’t really care about “on what” people are speaking, i prefer “how” they speak about things that they like or they are passionate about. maybe narrowfiltering would make me lose some interesting things :-)
doing it in the right way could be a very nice development in social media.
Very interesting post. I have to say though that I enjoy all your posts no matter what they’re about. They always put a smile on my face :-)
ReplyDeleteHere’s what I think:
- Do you share my interests in narrowcasting?
I do. I think that if it can be done, it’ll be great. I have many different circles of friends (and family) and I am often concerned about spamming them with all the Swing stuff I do for the school. I doubt very much that my grandmother in Colombia needs to know about the latest workshop I am organizing :-P
- Or do I have an unusually large addressbook and/or overly geeky demands re: sharing and filtering?
I don’t think so. It is a very valid concern.
- Are you familiar with any services that are helping folks connect more deeply vs. broadly?
No, but if you hear of one, please let me know.
Amen Adam! You listed the exact reasons why I hesitate before posting. Narrowcasting would make all the difference!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post Adam. I just came up with a plan for a site that will allow just that. I don’t know if I can compete with the likes of Twitter, but with a lot of work and a little luck, I may be able to do something. <0_o>
ReplyDeleteNow to go find someone to code this thing!
Steve
Totally agree.
ReplyDeleteEspecially with the launch of FourSquare / Tripit / Last.fm and other spammish type applications.
I don’t want all of my friends to have to sift through that stuff if they don’t find it interesting.
Also applies at events like SXSW. I don’t want my streams flooded with people live tweeting (which I despise in general) events. Pay attention to the f**king speakers you inconsiderate a**holes.
Did you know you can make a friends list with any heading you want?
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about not being able to use their software to filter through your friends list and sort them out into groups, but I filter one group of my friends as Canadians (my wife is Canadian and we used to live there), and I just add any new Canadian friends to that friends list when I “acquire” a new friend.
I did the same with an organisation I am connected to, so I could email that whole group.
So, manually you can still send a message that way, but I don’t think you can filter the privacy to just a certain group of friends, so your Wall isn’t seen by everyone.
My Canadian friends list shows up as a menu item on the left hand side so I can just see what my friends in Canada are saying.
Still needs some work though, I agree. :-)
Chris in Scotland
@ chris - But you cannot just post to those people’s walls, right?
ReplyDelete@steve Actually, you can. With the new privacy settings FB put in, you can clck on the padlock beside your post and choose who can see that post.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you have sorted your friends into countries, or family or whatever you can just post to that group of people and they are the only ones who see it.
However, I don’t know whether it WILL show up on your friends’ wall or not. For me that seems to be a mystery which of my friends’posts I see automatically on my feed. I suppose I should just filter that application to only feed the closest friends I care about seeing their day-to-day nonsense… I’ll check on that.
Anyway, I hope that was useful. lol
@chris, I see what you mean. It is a bit cumbersome though, and not as refined a system as what Adam described wanting. Thanks for the clarification though, that was feature I didn’t know about. lol
ReplyDeleteOne would think that features as Adam describes should be pretty obvious. But you’re right, it’s near impossible to use Facebook for a ‘targeted’ message.
ReplyDeleteA few filters should not be that difficult to construct? Maybe your post and our reaction here will be the trigger for these services to provide what we wish?
I’ll need to check the new feature Chris mentions, haven’t even noticed that I could use that…
Okay, I talked it over with my better half, and I am going to launch a program that I think will do what you are talking about. Will it go anywhere? Who knows, but crazier things have happened. The idea sounds good in my head. I have a coder working on it, so… prepare for a “buzz conduit”. lol :-)
ReplyDeleteWish me luck!
Steve
hey man, i totally agree with AnnieE. And Steve, actually you can post in people’s walls ;-)
ReplyDeleteCheers,
detectives
I understand that you can post to people’s walls, but a bunch of people’s walls? How about only those people that live in your area that are interested in live Jazz with a single post? Isn’t that what Adam is talking about?
ReplyDeleteVery good points, Adam.
ReplyDeleteI think people’s needs vary and, in that respect, Facebook should have a broader range of functionalities to accommodate this diversity.
Think about someone like Darren Rowse. Broadasting to a large number of people is something that works in his advantage. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t benefit from what you’re talking about too (in fact, he probably would), but since his business is marketed through himself as an individual, broadcasting works.
On the flip side, most people on Facebook probably face the same dilemma you’re describing. I know I do - and in my case, not only am I broadcasting to different groups of people with different interests, but my family and friends speak different languages. So I know that every time I choose to post something in Portuguese, I’m completely alienating all my English speaking contacts (and vice-versa, although most of my friends who have Portuguese as first language also understand English, which is why I’ve chosen to post primarily in English). And I also cross-post from Twitter to Facebook all the time, so there’s an extra layer of concern there (although this is a problem I create for myself and has nothing to do with Facebook). But bottom line is, we end up having to filter the information we’re broadcasting when, in reality, filtering users who receive the information would be much, much smarter.
There are times when the message is of general interest, but for the most part they are not. I am completely passionate about cosmetics and perfumes, for instance, and every time there’s a good sale or a good enough coupon going on, I like to post it for some of my friends who share the same interest and absolutely love getting the information. Imay doubt, however, that that information is of ANY relevance to YOU, for example (unless be it happens to be Valentine’s Day and you can use that to buy a really nice gift for a woman in your life. ;-)). But for the most part, this just adds noise to people’s streams.
All of my contacts are sorted into friends lists, which makes it easy for me to filter the content I’m receiving, but the noise is inevitable even when you do it that way. And personally, I think selecting who can see your update AFTER it’s been posted is just plain lame. It’s like being in a conversation, saying something then taking it back - because by the time you make that selection, people who are online and checking their streams might have already seen it.
So yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you that we should at the very least have this option and it should be smart, simple and intuitive. I’m not sure this is in their best interest however: the more people you broadcast to, the bigger the audience for ads. I honestly doubt no one on the Facebook has thought of this type of functionality…
Adam,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you narrowcasting should be a built-in feature of Social Network site I really believe we can make a difference in the future of social networking as a user :-)
For now let’s go broad ...
Hi Adam
ReplyDeleteYou are 100% correct. There is a gap in the way
you can select portions of contacts.
It needs to have a function similar in emails(gmail) so you can select groups and then modify them even easier. Its all in the name of saving time….
Matt
Ps, will be interesting to see what BUZZ implements for this common hurdle.
@Matt - I think we have figured it out. I don’t want to SPAM Adam’s blog post, so I will not go into details here, but I will suffice it to say that I think social networking is getting to a point where there is an almost overwhelming sense of noise. I think the ability to easily “narrowcast” to people who are actually interested in what’s being posted has got to become the next evolution of social networking. My research is telling me that there are quite a few people that agree.
ReplyDeleteYou can “narrowcast on FB” although it’s not as easy as it should be, such as creating a friend list (which only became available after you’ve had almost a thousand friends!), choosing the list after uploading content, and tagging specific individuals. Again, it should be easy like other stuff available for broadcasting!
ReplyDeleteFine-tuning is a good idea. However, I really dont see the problem with all this - I think you worry too much. Because there’s always gonna be some people, whether close friends or distant acquaintances, that will find this or that comment of yours irrelevant or uninteresting. So what? Why not let THEM pick and fine-tune? Its like with a forum, you could go into a thread that doesnt tickle your fancy and complain about such a non-sensical thread or you could just brush right over it, onto a thread that actually interests you.
ReplyDeleteIt is needed both ways… I can filter out someone’s comments or posts or dumb-pet/city/family they are taking care of, but again, it could be better.
ReplyDeleteI a big on narrowcasting i think narrowcasting can benefit the smaller blogger as well. email newsletters are probably the best example of a narrowcast because a channel not accessible by everyone. These channels provide you with extra monetization potential.
ReplyDeleteI am beginning stage user of FB, Twitter. Your idea is so good. If we have narrow casting that will helpful for us. I will try to find out more. If I got any wonderful idea, I will come again and share with you.
ReplyDeleteWell, that’s a rather original term “narrowcasting”! And I totally agree with it - it’s vital today for social networking sites to have it with the clutter and informatiom glut out there. Best term I’ve heard since “prosumer” :-)
ReplyDeleteGood point, Adam. I have only been using Facebook for a couple of months and just when I think I’ve mastered it, they change things! As they are still a young service, they are learning as they go and making changes. I hope they take note of suggestions like yours and continue to develop and enhance their site.
ReplyDeleteI really like a lot of the Facebook features. I learned to make several lists and that helps. But it could be less cumbersome.
I hope they will improve Facebook as time goes along. I like the idea of it and am enjoying meeting old friends. I hope as time goes on i will have enough friends to make narrowcasting a problem!!
ReplyDelete“I hope they will improve Facebook as time goes along. I like the idea of it and am enjoying meeting old friends. I hope as time goes on i will have enough friends to make narrowcasting a problem!!”
ReplyDeleteI agree full with you
Yeah, its hard to narrow down the selection in facebook and other social networking sites. If facebook would have introduced separate folders like ‘Office Collegues’, ‘College Folks’, ‘School Friends’ etc etc then it will be much easier to send message or socialize with a particular circle of friends. Hope they will do something soon…
ReplyDelete