But that’s not really realistic. I would rather have 100 contacts I know very well rather than 1000 that are superficial. I started clearing out the noise with Twitter. Facebook will come next. Social suicide or better time management? I’ll leave that decision up to you.

Building a name, positive reputation (whether for yourself or your company) and quality contacts takes time. I am like Tony, once I establish a quality relationship with someone for goods or services, they are the first place I turn when I need what they offer. But I don’t choose vendors lightly, I have to be sure of their capabilities, because their work effects my brand perception.

Everyone has strategies to managing social noise, but once you hit “internet celeb” status, personal relationships start to suffer. Find a balance that’s right for you.

OMG, Macala Wrights last blog post: Do You Have Google Alerts on Your Company, Competitors or Distributors?

I have never been a person who thinks that the more friends I have on myspace or facebook, or the more people following me on twitter, the more popular I am.
At the time I didn’t even add someone unless I had at minimum met them a few times in person.

But after a pretty bad time for me I realized just how shallow many of those connections I had been making really were. No one cared, but I don’t blame them, the problem was that I had assumed that they treated the services the same way I did.

A service that should be used to make the connections you want to build on stronger, a way to keep in contact with people you don’t see often.

Since then ive rethought how to use these services to my benefit, and rethought the whole designation of who really is my friend, and who is just someone I know or met.

Its a sobering realization, but something that needed to happen.

There are about 5 tabs I keep open at all times on my browser, Facebook, email, twitter, calendar, and my site. but just like in real life there are those friends that you don’t always pay attention to but occasionally have something good to say and I wouldn’t want to miss it.

Awesome Post AV really enjoyed the insight.

OMG, Efren Toscanos last blog post: Get free Hosting for One Year from Microsoft

I think of it as bobbing along in a river, very organically. Sometimes your head’s underwater, sometimes it’s above water, but so long as you’re bobbing forward and moving authentically through the space, it’s all good.

OMG, Atherton Bartelbys last blog post: Filling In The Blanks

Twitter, for example. Twitter is a large party that everyone’s invited to, and you get to overhear conversations you might not otherwise if you have certain groups of people followed. I’ll be more likely to add twitter followers I don’t know than anyone else.

Livejournal is trickier. Heaven knows I have a lot of ‘friends’ there I read and enjoy, or they write something that moves me, and I never tell them. But neither do I expect commentary on my posts. It’s a huge pool, but it’s more like a high school cafeteria where your friends brought a bunch of people to sit at your table you didn’t know, but most of them are cool. There’s the one or two jackasses, and there’s the groups in corners having explody drama, but eventually you all go back to class. I don’t mind adding people I’m not close to there either, because really personal things I can filter.

And then there’s facebook. Facebook… it makes me very uncomfortable to have people on facebook (or even myspace, though I don’t use that so much), who I don’t have some level of trust, or at least ‘you’re okay’ with. Facebook is mostly my family, irl friends, co-workers and long-standing online friends. I have about 80. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it topped out at about 150.

Either way, it’s all about expectation. I don’t think it’s fair to expect attention from anyone, friend or associate, and certainly not favours, unless you’ve already done one (a requested one), for somebody. It seems… distasteful to me. But I can’t help but approve of the desire to be closer with people who, for whatever reason, like one. Nu, that is perhaps more about what one expects from oneself in terms of one’s relation to others, and that is… all right, imho.

Oh, and you know what?

Occasionally, I still post in my diaryland diary.

OMG, Rabbits last blog post: Internal Documents.

OMG, Laura Robertss last blog post: The Who vs. The Guess Who

If you think I can help you, feel free to ask. If I can I most probably will but not because we are “friends” on FB but because helping people out is generally very rewarding work.

If your matter is urgent enough you will find me. If it is not, you wont, and that’s fine for us both.

It’s a quandary that I grapple with too. Either I cut off access to additional friends and followers, and cut back on those that I have, in order to concentrate on a core group of people with whom I already have relationships. Or, I continue to be open, allowing the possibility of new relationships to develop, while quietly attempting to maintain meaningful communication with a smaller group of people. Generally, I’ve chosen the latter option. Often I fail miserably. Sometimes, I get it right. But, I still catch myself wishing for an army of minion clones to do my bidding, if only because I’d love to sit and chat all day.