So who am I? More importantly what sort of a person am I? I think these are important questions when you are planning (or being submitted to) an online presence.
I think I am slowly getting wiser concerning mine. I am certainly starting to be more realistic. You can’t be any different than you are in real life. If, like me, you have a modest social life, or don’t have tons of friends or party all week long, it is unlikely that your online presence will be any livelier.
This is in spite of social apps and the social web in general. In fact your online presence will probably be very similar to your offline presence. I for example really love chatting with people and discussing life in general but I flee from superficial contacts discussions about the weather, people news or anything meaningless for long periods of time.
I tend to have a plan and my interactions with others generally need to move from point A to point B to be meaningfull.
This is probably why I’ve had a hard time and sign up for a whole load of stuff (it’s so easy isn’t it: just a username and password and you’re in).
I also feel, but you might disagree, that being bilingual English and French and living in Switzerland takes me to the fringes of the social web because culturally the Swiss are different.
Well I’m getting more organised now and I’ll be telling you how it’s going. This is the start. Although I’ve left point A well behind I am far away from point B. I’ll keep you posted (pun intended).
Over on my long established personal blog I have decided to devote the content to only personal and local topics and move other technical and social topics here.
I also plan to mix english and french content and encourage my friends and family to participate.
This is an extract from my other blog explaining the shift.
There are however, I feel, two types of readers and visitors. Those attracted by personal comments and life in general and those more interested by technical and professional topics.
I have started another blog for all those technical, web 2.0, social apps, cms, wms and edh posts that I intend to write from my viewpoint. I am a fiftysomething geek. I am not alone and I want to understand and be a part of the new social web and help others be a part of it too.
Most of these sites and webapps seem aimed at my younger friends but already there appears to be some social divide between twentysomethings and thirtysomethings while fortysomethings and fiftysomethings are a little lost. But are they? Is that just my perception of a non-existant problem?
If you are happy just finding out what’s going on in Geneva and in my life and want a hug and wave from time to time. Pop over to (blog.graham-lawrence.com). It’s going to get personal. It’s finally having a distinct style of it’s own.
This is something that you probably should have told me (but why would you have done that) a long time ago. I visit a lot of sites per day. I use(d) Netvibes as my start page because I love the magic of having the same start page over multiple sites and platforms.
I have a sidebar on my blog with the blogs of friends that I visit.
I’ve been on the web before it became the web (long story) and I’m an early adopter when it comes to buying into new technology. Specially when it comes to gadgets!
Some things take longer to sink in and although I’m a little ashamed I admit that I saw a poll today of how people read their feeds It was from reading the results that I learnt that most people use a web-based reader and a lot of them pick Google Reader.
I may be a little thick at times but I don’t think I’m an idiot or can’t change my mind on something so I’ve just set it up.
Although I’ll keep using Netvibes for all non feed related widgets I’m crossing over to the other side and adopting Google reader.
I honestly think that it will save me time and that is what we all have as a precious commodity. I think I will also just consult it a few times a day. The other problem with Netvibes is that the feeds are there but you have to reclick many times to get where you want to go.
I like to think of it as being the difference between going around your neighborhood looking for stuff and looking in all the shop windows or just having all that news delivered to your doorstep.
I’ll give you an update in a few days but would welcome any input or advice you could give me.
I often wonder if my dedicated readers just watch my feeds or actually visit or under what conditions they physically visit the blog.
You have to start somewhere and this is it. If you wanted the very first post on the blog you’ve found it.