Over the past few years I have joined several social networking sites and continue to use a few of them regularly. These sites serve different purposes for me and I have started to come up with strategies of whom to connect with where. Here are the general guidelines that I have developed (subject to spontaneous change and arbitrary override).
- On LinkedIn I only link with people that I know in person , worked with in real life or have worked with online intensively in different open source projects. , have communicated with over different media. there are couple of exceptions in my connections from my early days when I didn't have my own set of rules yet. (Some of them have been unlinked now actually)
LinkedIn is my personal Addressbook, not a public Phone guide :)
- I only follow people who inform and/or entertain me on Twitter and I don't care about followers, so don't expect me to follow you back.
(I`m not using Identi.ca anymore .. given no relevant userbase)
- On location based services (like Tripit, Dopplr ), I connect to people that I would genuinely like to meet up with when traveling and who I trust not to rob my house when I am away. If we haven't met yet, but you want to meet this is the place to connect !
(Forget about Dopplr.. only Tripit for now..)
- Yes, I did Poken, but obviously only with people I meet in person, and I`m still waiting for that first Poken with someone I don't know yet. (I was close but ... :)) (Update: Poken is kinda obsolete, and my battery is s dead anyhow)
- Sadly I`m using Facebook again , I only connect to people I know, and I generally Ignore all group invites, and block all applications. I'd actually prefer not using it at all.
- I`m keeping an Eye on Google+ .. but I`m not seeing much action
- I'm so not Plaxo, Xing and Ecademy anymore, I sometimes log on there, once every 6 months hoping nobody was stupid enough to send me a message there ..
- To me Wink, Spock, Naymz and some others I forgot are Dead
- I join new social networks often with no intention of actually using them, but just to make sure Tom doesn't sign up impersonating me
Well, those are my rules and I’m stickin’ to ‘em… at least, for now and when I don’t forget them.
(Idea shamelessly copied from Seth :))
