My Social Network “Friend” Policy (Updated again)

Kris Buytaert — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:54:42 +0000

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 :))

Will Poken catch on ?

Kris Buytaert — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:29:21 +0000

Poken is the new gadget in town. Some people called it the future of social networking.

The idea of exchanging data at the click of a button , or less has been here fore ages. The problem always is that the tool needs to gain Critical Mass before it becomes useful.

I remember transferring my VCard from my Palm Pilot or Handspring Visor to other people's Palm Pilot , or using different IrDA protocols to transfer my details between different phones, that worked fine, for the happy few that had similar devices. These days we transfer details over SMS' messages or Bluetooth, but then they are stuck in the mobile phone, with the Palm I at least imported them in my PIM.

The thing is not everybody had a Palm, not everybody had a IrDa enabled phone , and people tend to turn off Bluetooth for security reasons. The idea of adding a (soon to be rebranded) TikiTag to your business card seemed cool, So far I could hand out 2 cards to people whom I was absolutely sure they had a reader ,

So different efforts have tried already the same .. to exchange digital data while people had physical contact. none of them seems to have catched on .. yet.

My Poken is on the way .. maybe this time it will catch on .. who knows .. it surely looks more viral than the others ...

Everything is a Freaking DNS problem - poken

My Social Network “Friend” Policy (Updated again)

Will Poken catch on ?