September 19th, 2008
Personal syndication overload? Just pare your apps
Webware’s Rafe Needleman has an interesting chart of all the services he uses and publishes to and notes that personal syndication overload could be a problem.
Rafe’s chart isn’t pretty. He’s got too many authoring tools and all these feeds going to Twitter, Plunk, Jaiku and other apps. And then there’s the usual Facebook.
Rafe is getting at a topic that was highlighted at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York earlier this week. The gist at the Web 2.0 talk is that filters need to be rethought to manage information better. That’s fine, but there’s another missing element here: You are your own filter.
Some folks feel obligated to try out every new service that comes down the pike. Rafe writes about Web 2.0 for a living, but even he could say no. My personal chart is way simpler than Rafe’s. I use Wordpress, use Twitter an embarrassingly little amount and don’t screw with anything called Plunk, Jaiku or Kwippy. Those latter things could be stuffed animals for all I care. What’s the point of using a service that’s just another thing to manage? I can barely manage my two year old and five year old. Why the hell do I want another YAW20S (yet another Web 2.0 service)?
Here’s my confession: I’m a simpleton. I’ll use Facebook, Wordpress and troll the wires for news. RSS feeds? I’ll use them a little, but frankly if it’s real important it bubbles up to me anyway. I really don’t mind letting gatekeepers like the mainstream media do its job sometimes. Web 2.0’s great–in moderation.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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