Aggregation

[pecunium]

I am, in context, for it. I like they way the net lets me compile all sorts of related facts; which I can then ponder and discuss.

But there are limits. Buzz has me thinking about it. I think I am likely to go to the effort to opt out. What it does doesn't really appeal to me enough to make up for the intrusion it introduces to me e-mail.

I'm not a Luddite. I do, perhaps, have some amish-like traits. I am not so much an early adopter as I am a patient one. I didn't get a cell phone until I had to (Maia and I were a continent apart). I am still irked that to get the features I wanted on my present phone (purchased because the first phone I got.... in 2003, died), I had to get a camera in it too.

Which is why I agree with this guy.

Unlink your feeds

I have a faceboook account. I have a flickr account. I have an Lj. I have a twitter account.

None of them talk to each other. I use them for different things, but more to the point, I don't want to make an opt-out model for things. If someone wants to read the odd retweet I make (I think I have twittered maybe four times, one of them to enter a contest), they can look me up.

I don't feel it all that kind to force them to read m on Lj (this is not a smack at the people on Lj who post tweets. It's my quirk).

There are also some other problems; structural ones, he discusses. Go, read the manifesto. He might be wrong, but he's got some points which ought to be pondered.

Comments

[mycroftw.livejournal.com]

I can see having one site which is simply an aggregator - and if there's duplicates in other services, then there's duplicates in the aggregator. But the "Unlink your feeds" guy is complaining about "in order to get information X, I have to take information Y which I may already have read"; as long as (in Michi's case, for instance) there's nothing on Facebook exclusively, then people can pick and choose what they need, or get the firehose "everything" option - there will be no reason to have to take the firehose or miss something important to them.

Having said that, I have many many reasons to sequester my online lives; not least the "people from school that could still be hazardous to my health" issue. So I'm not a social media guy, really; and Buzz can go ~ off (for the dictionary geeks out there).

[michiexile]

There are some things that are exclusive to Facebook in my case - but those are mainly things that make sense in Facebook's particular environment; and having Facebook be the firehose is, for me, a way to provide my less savvy contacts - who all seem to digest Facebook well, but multiple media not so much, with updates on me and my life.

That said, your second point is very well taken. I'm very happy to lead such a secure and comfortable life that I don't really need to worry about segregating my online persona or keeping away from actual threats. Of this I am very, very, very thankful.