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The Honeymoon is Over

Rewind back a few months and everyone was happy with the ever flowing river of new web applications. The latest and greatest pretty and shiny thing that we’d flock to and try it out. But, those days are pass and now people are cynical, buried and full of questions. Oh no!

In the past week I’ve read handfuls of articles slamming Second Life. I’ve seen blog posts complaining about the sudden attention Facebook has gotten. The death match between Twitter and Pownce continues (or was there ever really one?).

What I think is important for people to realize is that the honeymoon is over. If you are going to launch a new application, widget, campaign or anything else that you hope to get people’s attention with, it damn well better be unique, well constructed and thought out in every detail. Flying by the seats of your pants is no longer going to cut it because everyone has gotten past the glow of pillow talk and is not focusing on the day to day living with these things and the warts are starting to show.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing any of the technology that I’m using. I’m figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t. Trying to figure out how to cross pollinate while not making the water undrinkable and determining what I cut off and what I keep. The point I’m trying to make though is that EVERYONE is now doing this. From the newest of newbies to the oldest-timers out there. We are all stopping and taking a closer look at all the toys we are playing with.

What are you doing right now to dig through the ever growing pile of social media invites? Have you made any reductions in the number of feeds or duplicated services you use? I’d love to hear how this is all effecting you the reader of this post because let’s face it, we all approach this differently.

C.C. Chapman C.c.

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  • I'm an early adopter, fascinated by the newest shiny network or service. I certainly can't use them all, or even try them all. But I like to explore as many as I can before they hit critical mass.

    The ones I actually use are those that work well and offer value to me AND to my personal/business network. Whether they are being hyped or bashed in the media has little relevance to my decision. Some years ago I was a Capitol Hill correspondent and I became frustrated over the distortions exerted by producers and editors. The media has a very short attention span (unless you wear a skirt and get arrested in Hollywood).

    Is the Honeymoon over? For Second Life, it's over with the press. I'm not so sure that it's over with the rest of the online community. One killer app like a dashboard to manage all of my far-flung social media accounts and they'd be my hero.
  • the honeymoon is definitely over. for me, it has been for a while now. my patience has worn thin when it comes to social media networks. (btw, meant to thank you for the MTG episode on network burnout - that's totally me right now...)

    haven't even gone near pownce. or facebook, for that matter (although i've been reading some convincing arguments in its favor within these blog comments). twitter's perfect for a person like me who has no patience or time to try it all out, who relishes face-to-face communication above all else. and in terms of networking on a business level, linkedin makes sense to me.

    my story is this: i became a podcaster out of necessity, to turn boredom and maliase into passion and ambition with music as the driving force. lack of website building knowledge and dial-up modem be damned, i need to do this...that's what i told myself. thankfully, i've been at it for almost two years now. but the more i'm online, the more i hear about mastering social networks as well as search engine optimization, not to mention the idea that if you're doing one thing within the world of new media, then you're not doing enough. meanwhile, real life could care less about my RSS feed, let alone my social networks and where i'm found on google.

    i got introduced to netvibes by a podcaster comrade of mine and that's helped manage the websites and blogs, keeping track of them in one place. i know myself: technology's cool and all, but too much is sensory overload and will only drive me insane. so what do i do? whatever time will allow. right now, that's twitter and netvibes. outside of that and my podcast, everything else gets looked at with a very skeptical eye. i just can't afford to spread myself too thin, be it online or offline.
  • Geoff Tinnion
    I think everyone has been extremely patient - were I lost my patience with web2.0 a while back.

    I have seen the same problem before in the java community whenever a new web framework comes out, everyone groans.

    I am no longer an early adopter. I hate plugs, I hate cables. Convergence is my friend.

    I recommend everyone dump and run to whatever site they want. Don't be bothered if your friend count diminishes - you don't know these people anyway ... the numbers aren't important it's the genuine connections that count.

    cheers

    Geoff
  • Some amount of backlash was bound to happen, especially with SL. I knew we had crossed the point of reason when I saw InviteShare. A website to manage web 2.0 invites. I am less willing to bounce around, although I will take a peek at just about anything. I'm getting entrenched with a few core apps/services and it will be harder to move me. I think sites that can amass a critical mass of users and not completely screw up, will hold them and make it much harder for others to break in. Pownce is interesting, but Twitter has critical mass and the service works well. Twitter wins. Myspace has critical mass, but the service is so bad, there was an opportunity for Facebook.

    Also remember, we are deep inside the echo chamber. Most of these social/web 2.0 apps will never see mass adoption. Myspace and YouTube have broken through, Facebook is getting closer. Most people have no idea what twitter, pownce, or even SL is.

    The honeymoon is certainly over, but I hope the creativity and innovation are not.
  • Personally, I was happier with Facebook before the Apps arrived, but I know happy days will be here again. The influx of useless apps - and the users installing them - is annoying; for a while there, I thought Facebook was going the way of MySpace.

    But this is common when you open a site up: you get 5% useful add-ons and 95% useless. After everyone realizes what a waste of time and space these bad apps are - and from the looks of it, many have - hopefully the surviving apps will add value to people's pages instead of content clutter.

    But back to C.C.'s post: I think there's room for some of these networks in one's life, but not all; there are too many redundancies across the board. (Just look at the "Share and Enjoy" bar avove - can't I just share something in ONE place?) I think extending yourself onto all of these networks opens yourself up to the risk of losing touch in any one of them and having outdated info out there; I try to pick and choose, and manage what I can. To network effectively, you have to push and pull in a timely fashion, and it's just too hard to do that when you're worrying about presences on a dozen different sites with various logins and content management systems.

    To me, Facebook and LinkedIn provide a pretty effective yin-and-yang look at my personal and professional lives. It's hard to imagine an app that can combine this without being too overwhelming to manage, but I'll leave it to the great young minds out there to build it.
  • Hi CC,
    I agree with your assessment of the wave of new web apps aimed at the social networking space. This is an area of technology that has "crossed the chasm", so to speak.  There's a plethora of apps all doing similar things, vying for our attention and use.

    Personally, I've scaled back on my use of web apps. Especially those in the social networking area.There just isn't enough time. Hell, I don't even have time to create my own Photo Gallery. I really look for those apps that can streamline my life or make all my technology work easier together.
  • Beth Gallaway
    I think we need to give things some time -- and EXPERIENCE them -- before we slam them. It's not fair to judge Facebook or SL or Twitter if you haven't played with it. Not sure what the minimum amount of time is, though. I know a week in SL isn't enough to form a judgment.
  • Hi CC,

    Great points!

    I find myself with more and more invites every day to new social media sites and have made a decision not to investigate them because I have found what is working for me (LinkedIN for business and some pleasure and Facebook, Twitter and my blog to keep track of girls who wouldn't date me in High School) and I fear I will spread myself so thin that I may not keep up with the sites I have clicked with. This may be narrow minded on my part but I only have so much time to spend on the interweb as it is.

    Saul Colt
    www.saulcolt.com
  • I definitely agree that there are too many services, cool ideas, and social networks to try or use even half of them. Personally, I've found myself spending very little time in Second Life recently, and have pretty much chosen twitter over pownce.

    That said, one of the reasons I love Facebook and all the new apps it is spawning is that instead of every web app attempting to build it's own social network and make you get yet another login/password and invite all your friends, you can simply build on top of Facebook's social graph.

    Users already have an identity on FB, don't need to port their entire friend list in, etc. It's brilliance - I just hope we can trust FB as the keeper of the network.
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