Monday, March 2, 2009

2009 Blog Improvement Project, Week 5: Social Media

Welcome, Kittens, to the latest installment of my 2009 Blog Improvement Project, brought to you by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness.
This week's installment concerns the use of social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, and Technorati.

I will be completely honest here, Kittens: up till six months ago, I thought I was pretty techno-savvy. I mean, I thought I was with it. Alas, I am not. I have no idea how Technorati, Digg, or Delicious work. I see their little icons whenever I go to embed a video in a post, or at the end of an article I read on Yahoo! News. But I just don't know what their function or purpose is. And if I can't understand what their function or purpose is, I don't use it. Period.

I use Twitter, and I like it, but I still don't completely understand how it works. I originally installed Twitter to update my blog during those moments when I didn't have time to update it. I enjoy coming up with little one-or-two phrase entries that update my fellow readers on the Life o' Kitten. However, I don't understand the whole concept of "following" on Twitter. In this respect, Twitter, to me, seems like glorified text messaging. I have a steady stream of Twitter followers, but I don't have my cell phone programmed to receive Twitter messages from anyone else. So if you follow me on Twitter, and you haven't heard from me, or have been able to respond to my witticisms, I apologize. I'll have to look more into this when I get the chance.

I don't want to let social media overwhelm my life. I think my social media life is pretty full with Twitter, blogging, and Facebook. I don't want to be a slave to all of this networking...in fact, the very thought of it is overwhelming me as I type this. I'm getting a bit sleepy. Is it all this talk of Twittering, or is it the herbal tea I just finished drinking?

7 comments:

Melanie Gillispie said...

I know! Oh my goodness, sometimes it seems just checking my e-mail, facebook and reading blogs, I don't have enough time to do other things. I signed up to do Twitter, but haven't ever done anything about it. It might be better that way for me. I would stress too much over trying to be clever, I think. And, I have enough stress.

Anonymous said...

I used to twitter but had to give it up. Blogging is addicting enough...twitter was too much.

Mimi Lenox said...

It all can be completely overwhelming, yes. You just have to choose where you are most comfortable and go with it. I love Facebook now but it takes time to figure out (like you needed my unsolicited advice....)
Twitter...eh...sometimes.

Vickie said...

I don't get that other stuff either.

I have limited texting so while I have my phone set with twitter, I dont have it sent back to me.

I had 2 people tell me to check Myspace out. Dude, I facebook, blog and twitter, I think that is enough. Beside my Hubby, I think would flip out:)

Jenners said...

I don't really understand or see the point of Twittering. Blogging is more than enough for me! I just don't have the time! Technocrati is a blog "ranking" thing -- you can "claim" your blog and then see who is linking to you and where you "rank" in the blogosphere or something like that. I signed up for it and claimed my blogs but I'm not really sure what else to do with it. But you can quickly and easily look for specific topics covered on blogs through it.

And I came across a post on Stumble It that I meant to read but haven't yet. I'll put the link at the end of the post.

But, for me, I just barely have enough time to post and visit other blogs so I'm just going to stop with that!

Here is the link (oddly enough it is from S. Krishna's blog so maybe you have seen it already!)

http://www.skrishnasbooks.com/2009/02/stumbleupon-overview_10.html

Jodi said...

Social networking is completely exhausting for sure. ;)

Anonymous said...

I agree! It all gets either so overwhelming or so addicting that it's impossible to get anything else done!