Library clips

Yesterday I posted a list of blogs I am enjoying reading at the moment, in the post I asked the people on this list to post a list of blogs they like to read.

Do I really want to know what Jack Vinson (Knowledge Jolt with Jack) or any of the others are reading, the last thing I want is more feeds to read. I’m happy for Jack to read his feeds and use him as a social filter…he points me to (ie. he blogs about) great stuff from blogs he reads and stuff these blogs point to, saves me from reading all these blogs.
When he points to other blogs, in his blog posts, I’ll check out their archives to see if it will make my Reading List, if I find there are only occassional posts I like, I’ll just wait for Jack to post about it.

In essense our Reading list is our social filter, each feed owner reads feeds of their own, reads stuff these feeds link to, reads stuff friends email them about, etc. I was going to include surfing the net, but I don’t really do that for stuff I’m interested in, all that comes to me via RSS as a starting block, and then I’m off on a hyperlink trail. The starting block is important, if it’s quality it will point to more quality posts, and so on.
I guess you have to choose your social filter (feeds you subscribe to) carefully…you know when you see a good feed as it’s posts consistently fill your interests, and enlighten you to new interests.

I like to choose a selection of blogs that have quality insight, and some others that point to quality stuff…we can’t read every blog, newspaper, and journal that’s out there, so it’s handy to read a feed that is like a type of clearinghouse on a topic.

In fact sometimes you can subscribe up to less than 5 feeds, and they will cover a good portion of a whole topic eg. these days you only need to subscribe to about 5 feeds about the latest web 2.0 stuff, even though there is hundreds of them.

NOTE: Lijit is a lifestream service with social filtering…you can search sources you trust.

When I research a social web topic, I don’t surf the web I consult the blogs on my Reading List, I search these blogs, and I get lots of useful insight and pointers to other blog posts…I check out the blogs on the blogroll and search these blogs, etc…I save so much time searching my social filter and social graph (dare I say it), and I get fresh, quality content.

Back to it…

So if these 20 blogs, refered to at the start of this post, along with some others are my social filter, then why do I need to be in a blog social network…my network of blogs are already in my RSS Reader, each blogger I subscribe to is my social filter.

But what if I could have 2 way networking with these guys, besides adding them as contacts, (which I regard is kind of similar to what you do when you subscribe to a blog), what if I could message them (similar to email), IM them, comment on their blog in general (like a comment wall), send them links, ask them questions, etc…
I can do most of these things with these guys, I just need to hunt around their blog homepages for email and IM details to send them links or ask questions, or comment about their blog in general.

A blog social network makes this so much easier (your contacts in context) as you already have a dashboard for your contacts, communications are archived in the one spot, the other thing is you can visit their profiles and find out what they read, and who are their friends, instead of writing top blog list posts like I did yesterday, and tagging people on that list to post about blogs they like to read…so cumbersome.

You also have the benefit of asking an aggregate of people the same thing in one go, or friends that can’t help you may hook you up with someone else in the network that could be of assistance…not only do you get a new answer, you get a new contact…the power of the network.

Another handy thing about networking with your RSS Reader subscription list is that you can share links, you might say that people are sharing links in their blog posts, so you are receiving these links anyway. But what if Jack Vinson comes across a link that he wouldn’t blog about, but he knows I would blog about it, he can ping it to me in one second.

Immersed in the ‘Internet Human Buzz’ sums this all up:

““The Net’s killer app has always been other people. There are side benefits, like access to all the world’s information. But the links that matter aren’t between pages but people, and they’re strong and rich and subtle. Multiply the infinite flavors in human relationships by a thickening bundle of means-to-connect; that product is what’s new and what’s good and what’s exciting.””

At the moment we are stuck with email, or del.icio.us links for you (problem is here, you may just want to send the link without having to bookmark it in your own collection)…specific link sharing tools like Siphs, Google Shared Stuff or ShareThis come in handy.
Link sharing tools are specific as you are explicitly sent a link, as opposed to reading the stream of your del.icio.us networks or people’s Google Reader Shared Items.

So we have handy tools for communicating with people, reading feeds, sharing links…but all these in a dashboard that hook you up with your contacts in a network just makes more sense.

I think the future of information consumption is the efficiency of the RSS Reader coupled with the effectivness of the social network.

Two services making inroads into this space are Streamy and FeedEachOther…I mentioned that MyBlogLog could be another.

So what’s it gonna be, where will our blog social network be, will it be a lifestream (social network) like Ziki, or an RSS Reader (social network) like FeedEachOther, or a link sharing network like Bzzster or absorbed into a greater social network like Facebook, or a better version of a blog network like MyBlogLog.

Or will be wait for Google to announce something, supposedly on November 5th…more from Rex’s Thought Spot and TechCrunch.

Related:
Lifestream Groups
RSS Smarts
The many aspects of attention
Blog networks or blog communities?

[ADDED 23/10/07: Searching your social filter]

[ADDED 23/10/07: BlogRovr as social filter]

[ADDED 11/11/07: Blogbar : search your outlink sources]