Leone, FB Birthday Etiquette from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

Leone, systems architect, talks about Facebook etiquette on your birthday.

I have been waiting on tenterhooks to receive my Google+ invitation. It’s been the talk of the social media town. What I realized today however was that I already have a thriving community in my Google Reader and through it’s commenting system. It sounds like Google+ will be the natrual extension of this (and includes my original Google Circles thoughts!) The comments my friends have added to Kellygo‘s original share about Google+ have kept me entertained for the past two days. The first half is us entertaining ourselves, the second half is google friends/aquaintances being brilliant and insightful.

Shared by Kelly Osborn

This sounds similar to Diaspora….

Allison, Chef and Food Activist from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

Allison shares why she tweets and the importance of getting the word about healthy food for schoolkids

EHF, or, Getting Engaged is Totally Social from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

What I’ve been up to

Kim, Knowledge Manager at Institute for National Strategic Studies from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

Kim talks about her research into social media’s role in the Arab spring.

Update: The report to which Kim is referring is AMIR (Arab Media Influence Report) and can be found on the PBS website here.

Jay, Investing Consultant from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

Is there a revenue model for microblogging platforms?

I think we all have those moments. At least I hope you all do, otherwise I may be a helplessly sensitive person. I sat at my desk, doing my usual pixel playfulness and occasionally hitting skip on my blip account when this song came on. I’d heard of Adele and been told by several friends that I needed to listen to her. My blip station is pretty good at predicting what I’d like as well (or rather the “djs” I’ve picked are). It was fairly easy to predict that “Someone Like You” would cross my ears at some point. I never would have predicted my reaction. My eyes filled with tears almost at the first break in her voice as she sang, “I’ve heard that your dreams came true.” I wasn’t able to continue working; I put my hands in my lap and listened to the song, feeling the words in a place I hadn’t realized I’d kept in me.

My heart hasn’t been broken in the way she is describing. I am not pining for a lost love and I can’t imagine being with anyone but EHGf. But what it touched in me was a feeling of deep regret and the heartbreak of good friends lost and opportunities thrown away. I loved the song for expressing that for me.

I sent it on to Kelly on Blip.fm.

Cause that’s how I use Blip.fm. Blip is sold as tweeting for music. You have a screen name, a limit of 140 characters, a community of people you follow (djs). The difference is that attached to each “tweet” is a link to some music living somewhere on the web. When go to blip you input the song you want into a search box and it comes back with listings from youtube,  and mysterious other cloud entities. The @ sends it to your friends. You receive email notices when someone has blipped you. It contains a link to the blip wich looks like the above: the blipper, the blippee, your small blurb, a listing on the song, a play button and then info on the blip, the song and how to buy it.Your own blip feed is playable (something that at this point can both get me through a whole day and tell the story of my whole year). You can listen to a rotation of songs your friends are blipping.  Are you can put it a song and listen to what other people who blipped that are listening to. It’s a robust community that mainly succeeds at what it sells. Of it’s several flaws, the largest is that it is dependent on the cloud for it’s content. Is it legal? Blip seems to leave that question and their responsibility for it at the door, making up for it by showing people where to buy the song they’re enjoying.

Blip’s aesthetic is best described as neutral with shades of Facebook. Gray blue background, dark gray-blue frames, light gray-blue highlights. The gold of the unimaginative sound-button/rss-feed logo is mirrored in the various badges and awards you can receive and store in a right column well. There is no customizing of your blip page, it’s blue all around. Blip does not want to become the MySpace of this decade; giving up passion for polish in the process. They main impression it gives is usability. Weird for a music site, but I’ll take it.

Kelly responded to my blip by giving me a thumbs up “prop,” an accolade that is counted on your main page. I didn’t notice, I was too busy mining my new favorite song for further entertainment. I tried to click on it’s genius button in iTunes but, strangely, no magic playlist appeared in response, even after update. Frustrated, I clicked on the “Ping button next to it. Registering was easy and completely in sync with my usual Mac experience. It asked me if I wanted to mine my contacts for friends on ping and I synced it to my twitter follow list, gaining 15 new contacts. I thought that perhaps ping would work like blip, or genius. I could ping my song and find other people with my music tastes, or other songs that I would similarly love.

I pinged my song with a little message to my new followers:

And then I went on with my work, checking in once in a while with google reader, and twitter.

I was surprised to notice that, unbeknownst to me, I had sent out a tweet.

In letting Ping use my twitter account to find friends, it had also been set up to send out tweets of my posts. This is a feature I likely would have utilized, but I was dismayed that it would be done with no notification or consent from me. I wouldn’t have sent that particular message out to the world on twitter, a site I primarily use as a part of design life, not to share emotions. I was also upset that my attempt to craft a brand for myself through my feed had been disrupted without my knowledge.

I was however curious to see what sort of format Ping used when it exported (is that the word?) to Twitter. I was hoping it would be something that would play easily in the Twitter interface. If that feature had appeared, I probably would have forgiven all.

My tweet sent people to iTunes. If I clicked a link on someone else’s tweet, I’d just be annoyed to be brought out of my browser or app, not excited about music. Also, the music isn’t really shared, it’s just an opportunity to buy music, which I can assume most people following my tweets would not be inspired to do.

Blip.fm is not a beautiful interface. I haven’t yet connected with anyone personally through. But I have found songs shared by other people on it that wouldn’t have othewise heard. I daily listen to the song that my friends who were already on it share. And I almost never tire of introspectively listening to my feed of songs. Sadly though many of the songs no longer exist at the links it try to embed. It is the fly in the ointment. Again, is it legal?

Overall, using Ping is easy and intuitive. You don’t have to search for your particular song through the various covers that are myriad in youtube. If you are using iTunes to listen to music, it is a natural part of your work flow. But there are few people using it. It tries to make itself more social by dishonestly hijacking your other networks. More however than my distrust of it is my disbelief that it will remain an option. I believe that eventually Apple will retire it as unused.

Meanwhile people will continue to be touched music. I can’t be the only person who is touched by a song and moved to share it. Music moves us to tears and moves us to share. But I don’t think the perfect way to share is yet a part of our toolset. I’d really love to hear how other people use social media to listen to and share music.

Mark, parent from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

Talks about catching his daughter in a lie through Facebook.

Elizabeth, developer from Abigail Noonan on Vimeo.

I once posted a picture of EHGf sitting in the sunbeam on a spring day on Facebook. I found it on my phone as I entered the office one day, and it made me feel that sun and the contentment I’d felt taking the picture. I posted it with the caption, “Sun. Book. Beer,” wanting to share my happiness.

Late that night my boss posted on my page, “Job?” I saw the single word the next morning and felt my cheeks turn red as nauseated anger flushed through my veins. The only interpretation I could see in his word was a condemnation of my using Facebook during work. Or maybe it was a threat—him telling me that my job was in danger because of that use. Or maybe it was just a contemptuous little jab. I reposted his word and tried not to think about it. I do have a tendency to read just a tiny bit into things. But it nagged at me for the rest of the day, what was he thinking, and why would he post as my boss in my private space?

I confronted him about it later. It was, of course, a joke. He is a good guy who doesn’t care what I do at work as long as the work done. We laughed at my paranoia.

But the incident stayed with me. That weekend, unable to stop thinking about it, I sat down and started sorting my 260 Facebook friend into lists. I made categories for myself: acquaintances, work, friends. Not complicated. It took me 3 hours. Finding where to make the list wasn’t easy. Clicking through and putting each single name individually into a list wasn’t easy. Once I was done with that I made several privacy rules. People on the work list couldn’t see my photos or wall posts unless I specifically said they could. People on the acquaintances list could see everything by default, but I was able to mark certain things as unable to be seen by work and acquaintance friends. People in the “friends” category could see everything by default. This added another half an hour to my adventure. I tested it several times, seeing what my profile would look like to a work friend, an acquaintance friend, and a friend friend. Another half hour. Add this time to the hour I spent the year before finding all the privacy settings and making sure that strangers didn’t have a window into my life, and I’ve spent 5 hours trying to have a modicum of control who actually sees what I post for my friends.

Several months later I signed up for Diaspora. I made a user name and password. I friended the people who I knew were also using the new platform. I was asked to classify them immediately. Were these people friends, family, or work? I put them into my friends category. Later I put my older brother into both friends and family. My signup took 5 minutes, maybe. Each time I added a friend, I spent an extra 5 seconds putting them into an aspect. When I post on Diaspora I can click a small gray bar and determine which aspect/s will see what I’m writing or who can see my photo or link.

I have this functionality in Facebook. It took me 5 hours, and unless I remember to click into my safety settings and allow my acquaintances and work friends access, only my friends see my post.

I have this functionality in Diaspora. Below my post I have small tabs to push to determine who can see it.

I now use Diaspora to vent, to despair, to complain, to rejoice, to argue, to philosphize. I use Facebook to share random information, photos and event information. They are both social media, but one somehow feels a lot more social to me these days.

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