Social media is a wonderful way of connecting with people, the strange this is how I find my relationship with different tools is just like a real world friendship.

I meet a new ‘tool’

I get excited by the ‘new conversations’

I start to use and can’t get enough of the new tool

I then get introduced new tools and new freindships are formed which affect the time I spend with the previous sites.

I keep 2-3 tools close, like trusted friends my blog, my podcast and twitter

With the other social media sites new ones excite, the older ones start to fade when they don’t provide value in my life.

Not sure if others feel the same but there is an irony in how our social networking sites are like real world connections!

Blogworld Expo really threw a wrench in my blogging routine. I was scrambling to get packed and ready to leave, and in that scramble, managed to completely miss my entire pre-posting regime that I normally subscribe to. Instead, now that I’m back and awake, I’m scrambling to get caught up again.

So, what do you do if you’ve lost your blogging mojo?

Well, for me, I write posts like this and start looking around to see what others are writing. I go through my (neglected) google reader and find posts that intrigue me. Can I add to them? What are my thoughts? What caused me to save that particular post? (image source: Termie on Flickr)

There’s always something thought provoking out there, it’s just a matter of getting your ‘oomph’ back to find it.  Go back through your starred items in Google Reader. Maybe you declare google reader bankruptcy and start fresh with only the few that are new since you pulled the plug?

The main point is, much like getting thrown off the horse, you just have to climb back on. Your readers want to see your new content, your new thoughts. They want to see what you’ve got to say, so just go say it.  Don’t apologize for your absence. That just draws even more attention to it.

Also, try and set yourself a goal of how many posts you need to have done by the end of the week, or if you’re just climbing back onto the horse today, till the end of the month. Personally, I’ve set a goal to achieve by the end of the month for here and Drinks After Dark to get back in the groove.

I’m writing up a mini editorial calendar and ideas to get covered off in the next few days and ideally, those thoughts will put me right back on track!

What do you do when you lose your blogging mojo? Do you have a good technique that might help me?

Definition of Chaos: “a state of extreme confusion and disorder”  [source]

Definition of social media: “an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories, and understandings.” [wikipedia]

Hrm. In my world at least, it’s almost as though those two definitions could be completely interchangeable.

I tried to take a look at my media consumption habits to draw connects to them all - you know, like a social map of sorts…who knows who, and who knows what about whom, that kind of thing - and instead I ended up with an almost Hugh McLeod worthy cartoon dust ball, tumbleweed or just random lines going all over the damn place.

Words aside, that looks like social media to me. Chaos is social media to me. There’s all these ….things…zapping around the interwebs. There’s just so much information and, well, chaos zipping around social media scene from facebook, twitter, friendfeed, alltop, blogs, youtube, plurk, flickr, podcasts, video etc etc etc.

Maybe it’s just the noise factor I’m trying to figure out. Maybe I’m not actually saying anything here at all and instead am simply making more noise, adding to the chaos.

When it comes right down to it, I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say here, which I suppose, in some way, is both chaos and social media personified.

I haven’t been this excited about a new social site in ages, but I’m really interested to see what happens with Delver.

I’ve been wondering if search was going to start trending this way – a way to be able to search your friends and their feeds, intelligently – for a while now, and it’s starting to percolate.

Information overload and social networking fatigue are big topics these days – and everyone is feeling it. The more friends you add, the more friends they add, the more that firehose of information opens up.

AideRSS is working on helping quiet the noise, but that’s more dependent on what the community overall thinks. What if that’s not what you find interesting or want to read about? That becomes a problem, and quickly.

Basically, what Delver does is pull content from your social graph to find just the information you’re looking for from the people you admire and/or trust. Overall, by using your friends information and their social graphs, it makes finding information and content a way more personal experience.

All of the big networks like Facebook, Google, and MySpace are fighting for control of your social graph, but while they’re duking it out in the ring, services like Delver offer a simple workaround to tap into the power of your social network.

Delver is still in it’s early stages, so I’m planning on keeping an eye on it to see where this new search format goes.

I spent the weekend thinking a lot about social networks, a bit about feeling a little social networked-out (I was barely on Twitter all weekend, and that’s unusual for me) and some time wondering what you guys want to see here. Am I delivering content you’re interested in? Is this content you care about? What would you like to see more of?

And so, to answer that question, I bring you the first BuzzNetworker Poll! (cue fanfare)

This has become one of the catch phrases of the “web 2.0″ world. How much of the information that is being pushed at you is Signal (something you want to read/hear/know about) and how much of it is Noise (something you care absolutely nothing about, and yet, it occupies brain space because it’s being pushed at you)?

After writing, and pondering about how Facebook has lost a lot of it’s lustre [post] for me at least, I started looking at the other things in my world pushing noise at me. Google reader for sure. I killed off several of the feeds that I somehow thought I cared about. FriendFeed is another one… I removed a lot of the chatter there as well because I was missing the stuff from actual friends that I wanted to see.

Finally, I’m taking a good hard look at Twitter, and removing anyone from my stream that doesn’t talk to me, or hasn’t in ages, that I don’t talk to, or haven’t in ages, and names that I just don’t know who they are.

I guess, in a way, this is a bit of “social networking fatigue” [wordspy] going on here. Either way, I just know that I’m missing the updates from the people I want to talk to or hear from and seeing random sports scores, people not joining the conversation but instead taking the “What are you doing?” question just too damn literally and conversations between people in which I don’t know EITHER participant.

How much of what you’re seeing on your own sites these days is just noise and how much of it is something you’re actually interested in?
(image source: newscom)

I thought it was just me.

I thought that I was the only one not visiting facebook, not caring about event invites, updates or status updates. I find myself not checking into facebook for days on end. I don’t even look at the email notices that I get. Hell, I barely even check that account anymore.

But, according to a survey posted on Mashable yesterday, only 13% of readers are not at all fed up with Facebook.

The data that prompted them to do the survey in the first place was by a group called 20bits. Their survey states that the number of active users has declined 27% since January, while the number of highly active users, as defined by 20bits, has plummeted 47%.

Even though data shows that there are still lots of active users of the site, I think that Brian Solis said it best: Facebook is the new MySpace.

What about you? Do you still use Facebook, and what for?

(image source, Mashable)

I found a post on webworkerdaily.com last week about people discussing social networking and how they are “over it”.

Due to the fact that I write about social networking, use social networking to promote my various blogs, and I am getting my Masters Degree in Digital Media Studies I am a member of just about every social networking and social bookmarking site under the sun. I honestly can’t imagine not checking some of my social networking websites for more than a few days, just because they have become a part of my daily routine. With that being said I don’t spend a lot of time on them per visit, I used to do that with MySpace at my old job and while I was helping consulting clients. It taught me that these sites are good in small doses.

Reading about people discussing “social networking fatigue” all I could think about was the simple concept of moderation. Social Networking sites are valuable sources of not only traffic but contacts and information as well. Creating a schedule or a routine on how to use these sites is something that can help keep them from overwhelming you as well protecting you from being sucked in and using too much of your time on them.

Currently I use a few sites daily:
-MySpace (post links to blogs, respond to messages)
-Hi-5 (through bot program only)
-Facebook (check up with people from school)
-Blogcatalog (participate in discussions, network with other bloggers)
-MyBlogLog (check stats)
-StumbleUpon
-Digg

My usage of all these sites is under half an hour combined. I do what I need to do on them and leave them, except for blog catalog because I like participating in the discussions on there throughout the day.

I am keeping track of my schedule and how much time I spend on what to put together a post about using social networking sites to promote your work for half an hour a day. Hopefully this will shape into something useful.

Just out of curiosity what sites do you frequent?

Technorati Tags: social networking fatigue, myspace, Hi-5, Blogcatalog, MyBlogLog, StumbleUpon