Today, Jeff Pulver points out a trend in communication that has emerged as a part of social networking:
There is a transformation going on in real-time social communications, and I’ve discovered that I can now get the same effect as a group “shout out” by simply changing my status message on Facebook. This also happens when using Twitter. This is yet another thing which is just not possible to do on LinkedIN – unless you plan on sending what may appear to be email spam to everyone in your LinkedIN contact list.
I completely agree and have taken advantage of this trend myself. I am always looking for new authors and ideas for new books, and use Twitter as part of my search. Previously I blogged about using a custom Google Search to mine the twitterstream, but that is a look backwards at conversations that have already happened. More recently I have simply tweeted about new book topics I am interested in, or a particular skill I may be looking for – “Looking for a JavaScript Ninja – know one?”
These tweets have resulted in my finding at least one new author, and several other potential authors. Using this form of communication is not as intrusive as an email sent bcc’d to a large list of people. It’s easier to ignore tweets you are simply not interested in, easier to ‘unfollow’ than beg to be removed from a mailing list, and the conversation happens in real time.
I have not yet taken advantage of status messages in my Facebook profile as Jeff suggests, but I will add that to my social toolbox.
Photo credit: plastictaxi
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