I thank God, Lord Soley; for your interest in extending the reach of the Lords of the Blog, with serious minded participants.
Up to now I haven’t been advised to trust any of those ‘personal’ sites mentioned.
However, I am actively learning on the WordPress.com local-communities blogging, as a low-income Plymouth Crownhill resident slightly overlapping with St Budeaux.
On my own little site therein I’ve already posted a ‘promotion’ for The Lords of the Blog, by name, commendation, and a “Beware! they might publish your submission exactly as you write it, mistakes and all !”.
May we succeed in establishing such necessary, sufficient, effective and overall-affordable ‘web-workings’; in my case in the name of Participatorily Cooperative ‘People-upwards’ Democratisation also.
In addition, I wish I had a separate email address or two through which to make as it were ‘preparatory’ contact with the Lords of the Blog, especially over tough and very serious Issues.
————-
(JSDM1809T2906).
Chris K
29/06/2010 at 7:20 pm
It depends who you’re after. I don’t know of anyone below the age of 40 – nor anyone at all personally – who uses twitter.
Most of my peers and I use facebook.
Never ever heard of Linkedin.
To give you some idea of my age, I’m a recent first-time voter.
In its simplest form, Twitter can be an extension of the RSS feed alerts – but has the advantage that the “tweet” can then be quickly forwarded around, and hence is quite a good way of introducing new people to the blog.
More complex uses exist as a social tool, but it depends if people are willing to put the effort into that side of it.
It all depends on how much effort people want to put into Twitter – a simple RSS clone, or in-depth chatting.
I never got my head around why Facebook is popular as the fanpages etc didn’t seem to have an obvious (to me at least) way of notifying people of changes.
Can’t comment on LinkedIn as I spend most of my time there declining “lets be friends” invites.
An interesting question to ask before going to far is “What exactly are we hoping to accomplish”?
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and the like are all similar at one level (“Social Networking”) but are very different in many respects (for example, one doesn’t really have real discussion or conversation with Twitter). But Twitter is also (generally) more instant.
I’ve seen all of these used, misused, and even abused. Take some time to do things right and with much forethought.
I think of LinkedIn as more of a professional networking tool, a place where I can link to work colleges from previous jobs without polluting the friends and family on Facebook. While a lot of people and organisations have various presences on Facebook it does seem to be more geared towards pure social interactions (organising events, sharing photos, re-placing email). Be aware that Facebook can act as a bit of a data silo. However for a lot of people Facebook is the site they spend most time on so I can see why it would be useful to have a LotB presence there.
Twitter is an odd one, it can be used well or just become a random data-stream of disjointed tweets. The serious, sublime and ridiculous can all exists side by side in a twitter stream.
With my Open Source hat on I would suggest that any Twitter stream should be duplicated on other services (like status.net). Clients are available that can post to both at the same time. This not only is a guard against a Twitter monopoly but also provides redundancy as Twitter is not the most reliable of services.
Gareth Howell
30/06/2010 at 9:01 am
I logged on to Face Book about 18 months ago,
and had a very long and totally vacuous correspondence with a pretty girl of 18 in Zambia, a very pretty woman in South Africa, and various other countries.
Does Lord Soley intend to put all his family photos on it? I have never been keen on photography, causing more trouble than it cures, so I was unable to provide the necessary, except for a middle ages portrait of Howell Dda, king of Wales, which seemed to interest quite a few, especially in port Talbot.
I did not get on to Twitter, so it must be good.
If you use mobile phones a lot for sending text messages, and understand the ice breaking effect of short messages, which I now do, in new friendships or acquaintances,
perhaps the effect of a photo is greater still, received or sent by mobile phone, and then a private huddle becomes possible, if that is what you want.
Face book has some extremely irritating features, such as sending you new friends,
in whom you are not in the least bit interested, and in the case of my forcibly retired MP recently, whom I positively loathed.
Perhaps in the same way that the Iran post electoral conflict was said to be caused by Face book’s subversive camera craftsmen, so my local MP (Lab) also lost his seat by a huge swing, thinking that he could use it too, the largest swing from Labour to Tory in the country I should think! Perhaps he thought that all his many sins and vicissitudes in the government from 2001-09 would be overlooked by the Facebook form of confession!
It can’t all have been deferential voting for
a hereditary peerage enfranchised commons candidate, although I some times wonder about the “medium not the message”!
Perhaps noble Lord Soley is similarly challenged, by technology, 7 years after its arrival in the market place, so I look forward to meeting him again before too long!
Once my brother had a crystal set which received Radio 1 with a cat’s whisker!
Chris K
30/06/2010 at 2:25 pm
I too have had a local MP add me as a “friend” on facebook. I declined.
There are two ways of looking at it. On the one hand it is nice he is trying to connect with the electorate (although I actually live in a neighbouring constituency – he probably justs adds everyone who lives in my town), but on the other hand it seems slightly, err, desperate and artificial.
In contrast members of the House of Lords don’t really have anything to gain – it seems a lot more genuine.
I regularly purge people from my facebook who meet either of the following criteria.
1) I wouldn’t recognise them walking down the street.
2) I would cross the road to avoid them.
Gareth Howell
30/06/2010 at 6:14 pm
Chris K, Neat!
“I too have had a local MP add me as a “friend” on facebook. I declined.”
Hoping that key constituents would win the day, but no such luck. I was “key” in his arrival and “key” in his departure, after he had hurled libellous abuse at me.
It can only have been a misuse of Facebook, and being taken by their sales patter!
djb13
30/06/2010 at 7:36 pm
I’ve not read through the comments, so sorry for repetition:
Twitter is good for short messages. I would say that if the Lords wants to adopt twitter, have the clerks tweet two or three of the most interesting/important votes/debates of the day. Facebook is more useful for candidates running for election, I can’t see how the Lords would use it as a group, except to allow people to ‘Like’ the House of Lords. I’m not familiar with Linkedin.
Who is paying for the tutorial?
I thank God, Lord Soley; for your interest in extending the reach of the Lords of the Blog, with serious minded participants.
Up to now I haven’t been advised to trust any of those ‘personal’ sites mentioned.
However, I am actively learning on the WordPress.com local-communities blogging, as a low-income Plymouth Crownhill resident slightly overlapping with St Budeaux.
On my own little site therein I’ve already posted a ‘promotion’ for The Lords of the Blog, by name, commendation, and a “Beware! they might publish your submission exactly as you write it, mistakes and all !”.
May we succeed in establishing such necessary, sufficient, effective and overall-affordable ‘web-workings’; in my case in the name of Participatorily Cooperative ‘People-upwards’ Democratisation also.
In addition, I wish I had a separate email address or two through which to make as it were ‘preparatory’ contact with the Lords of the Blog, especially over tough and very serious Issues.
————-
(JSDM1809T2906).
It depends who you’re after. I don’t know of anyone below the age of 40 – nor anyone at all personally – who uses twitter.
Most of my peers and I use facebook.
Never ever heard of Linkedin.
To give you some idea of my age, I’m a recent first-time voter.
In its simplest form, Twitter can be an extension of the RSS feed alerts – but has the advantage that the “tweet” can then be quickly forwarded around, and hence is quite a good way of introducing new people to the blog.
More complex uses exist as a social tool, but it depends if people are willing to put the effort into that side of it.
It all depends on how much effort people want to put into Twitter – a simple RSS clone, or in-depth chatting.
I never got my head around why Facebook is popular as the fanpages etc didn’t seem to have an obvious (to me at least) way of notifying people of changes.
Can’t comment on LinkedIn as I spend most of my time there declining “lets be friends” invites.
An interesting question to ask before going to far is “What exactly are we hoping to accomplish”?
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and the like are all similar at one level (“Social Networking”) but are very different in many respects (for example, one doesn’t really have real discussion or conversation with Twitter). But Twitter is also (generally) more instant.
I’ve seen all of these used, misused, and even abused. Take some time to do things right and with much forethought.
\m/
I think of LinkedIn as more of a professional networking tool, a place where I can link to work colleges from previous jobs without polluting the friends and family on Facebook. While a lot of people and organisations have various presences on Facebook it does seem to be more geared towards pure social interactions (organising events, sharing photos, re-placing email). Be aware that Facebook can act as a bit of a data silo. However for a lot of people Facebook is the site they spend most time on so I can see why it would be useful to have a LotB presence there.
Twitter is an odd one, it can be used well or just become a random data-stream of disjointed tweets. The serious, sublime and ridiculous can all exists side by side in a twitter stream.
With my Open Source hat on I would suggest that any Twitter stream should be duplicated on other services (like status.net). Clients are available that can post to both at the same time. This not only is a guard against a Twitter monopoly but also provides redundancy as Twitter is not the most reliable of services.
I logged on to Face Book about 18 months ago,
and had a very long and totally vacuous correspondence with a pretty girl of 18 in Zambia, a very pretty woman in South Africa, and various other countries.
Does Lord Soley intend to put all his family photos on it? I have never been keen on photography, causing more trouble than it cures, so I was unable to provide the necessary, except for a middle ages portrait of Howell Dda, king of Wales, which seemed to interest quite a few, especially in port Talbot.
I did not get on to Twitter, so it must be good.
If you use mobile phones a lot for sending text messages, and understand the ice breaking effect of short messages, which I now do, in new friendships or acquaintances,
perhaps the effect of a photo is greater still, received or sent by mobile phone, and then a private huddle becomes possible, if that is what you want.
Face book has some extremely irritating features, such as sending you new friends,
in whom you are not in the least bit interested, and in the case of my forcibly retired MP recently, whom I positively loathed.
Perhaps in the same way that the Iran post electoral conflict was said to be caused by Face book’s subversive camera craftsmen, so my local MP (Lab) also lost his seat by a huge swing, thinking that he could use it too, the largest swing from Labour to Tory in the country I should think! Perhaps he thought that all his many sins and vicissitudes in the government from 2001-09 would be overlooked by the Facebook form of confession!
It can’t all have been deferential voting for
a hereditary peerage enfranchised commons candidate, although I some times wonder about the “medium not the message”!
Perhaps noble Lord Soley is similarly challenged, by technology, 7 years after its arrival in the market place, so I look forward to meeting him again before too long!
Once my brother had a crystal set which received Radio 1 with a cat’s whisker!
I too have had a local MP add me as a “friend” on facebook. I declined.
There are two ways of looking at it. On the one hand it is nice he is trying to connect with the electorate (although I actually live in a neighbouring constituency – he probably justs adds everyone who lives in my town), but on the other hand it seems slightly, err, desperate and artificial.
In contrast members of the House of Lords don’t really have anything to gain – it seems a lot more genuine.
I regularly purge people from my facebook who meet either of the following criteria.
1) I wouldn’t recognise them walking down the street.
2) I would cross the road to avoid them.
Chris K, Neat!
“I too have had a local MP add me as a “friend” on facebook. I declined.”
Hoping that key constituents would win the day, but no such luck. I was “key” in his arrival and “key” in his departure, after he had hurled libellous abuse at me.
It can only have been a misuse of Facebook, and being taken by their sales patter!
I’ve not read through the comments, so sorry for repetition:
Twitter is good for short messages. I would say that if the Lords wants to adopt twitter, have the clerks tweet two or three of the most interesting/important votes/debates of the day. Facebook is more useful for candidates running for election, I can’t see how the Lords would use it as a group, except to allow people to ‘Like’ the House of Lords. I’m not familiar with Linkedin.