Information Architecting My Online Life

Over the years, I’ve created accounts on many social media, community, and blog-related services.  It is increasingly more difficult to keep content updated across all of these channels and accounts.

Here’s a rundown of the various sites or services that I use:

LinkedIn

• Professional networking
• Relatively static content, non-segmented

Facebook 

• 90% personal, 10% professional-related content
• frequent updates, content segmented/filtered to 3 different audiences- trusted circle, friends/acquaintances, limited view
• content sourced from Friendfeed, Twitter, mobile and web apps

Twitter

• 80% personal, 20% professional-related content
• frequent updates, no audience segmentation/filtering

LiveJournal

• 90% personal, 10% professional-related content
• content updates about 1-2 times a week
• 95% content primarily filtered to “friends list” only

MySpace

• Personal/social networking
• Relatively static content, non-segmented/filtered

Nil8r WordPress Blog, viewable on www.nil8r.net

• Personal-life blog
• Primary subject matter around tech/geek, gaming, anime, scooters, cats, hobbies and daily life
• infrequent updates 1-2 times a month, no audience filtering

OperationEmail WordPress Blog, viewable on www.nil8r.net

• Professional-life blog
• Primary subject matter around database/email marketing, marketing operations, and Expedia/tech worker  life
• infrequent updates 1-2 times a month, no audience filtering

FriendFeed

• Primarily using as a content aggregator
• Pulls in content from Facebook, several blogs, Twitter, Netflix, Pandora, Last.FM, Digg, Google Reader LinkedIn

Posterous

• Primarily using as a content publishing mechanism
• Account pushes content to Friendfeed, Twitter, Facebook, personal blogs

What I really want might be the web-equivalant of the Holy Grail.

1. A seemless, single-entry point widget/service/site to generate content and publish to; must allow selective publishing
2. A single point of content aggregation, cross-platform

For #1, Posterous is getting me closer. Myspace isn’t supported, but that’s not a site I pay attention to much anymore. The autoposting enhancements to Facebook and WordPress makes this super-convenient, as a single email with some metatagging controls where I publish. No web-logins required.

For #2, Friendfeed is good for aggregating self-generated content, but it seems to be lacking in generating my “friends list” content, if they don’t already have a FriendFeed account.

I’d love to be able to have one place to read all of my Twitter follower posts, Facebook newsfeed/status updates, Livejournal friends posts, and blogs/RSS feeds (via Google Reader). The closest platform I’ve found towards fulfilling this wish is my iPhone. Unfortunately, it means leveraging 3-4 different apps and viewing the LJ mobile website via Safari.

I’m noticing (especially with Facebook and Twitter) that I sometimes make duplicate posts. This isn’t the user-experience I want to thrust upon friends and the internet-at-large. It would appear that I need to map out the information flow and interactivity between all of these services and update Friendfeed/Facebook/Twitter/Posterous settings accordingly.

Five years ago, I would have never expected to have to “debug” my communication information flow.  Nor did I expect to come full circle to leveraging email as a content distribution mechanism.

[Day 1] Email Insiders Summit – Social Media

“This social stuff is even harder to measure than email”

Jupiter Research presented by David Daniels indicates thats email will be a 2.1 billion industry in 2012. he also points out that the amount of email reaching a person’s primary address hasn’t gone up that much in the last couple of years and there’s more adoption of using the cell phone to check email. For the often desired 18-24 year old demographic, email is still an effective driver for purchase, but we need to understand that email as an application is less compelling to them.

I think there’s another round of new widgets and sites ahead, but there’s got to be a consolidation of these mediums. That or social aggregators will become the new “hotness.”

Marketing still has a little time to figure out why and how they should care about social networking and media, but if the panelists and research are tracking to the overall behavior of the college students today, then we need to figure out how to reach them in their mediums if they won’t come to email.

[Day 1] Email Insiders Summit – Next Generation, Does Email Have a Future?

Micherlle Prieb, Project Manager and Researcher at Ball St. University Center for Media Design moderated the panel of 3 University students on the panel.

Each student with introduced and asked to describe what media couldn’t they live without. Examples from the panelists include the smartphone – checking email, spend upwards of 2000 minutes a month in cell phone use, and mobile sites. General internet and computer use is an average of 7-8 hrs. a day. Most are early adopters of mobile. 

The college students were all in agreement that they consider the use of email to prmarily be where they conduct “important,/corporate world interactions (ie. college, job recruiters). However, social networks, and specifically Facebook, is the primary point of communication socially and with friends. One panelist describes his morning wake-up ritual as check email and facebook. All are reluctant to integrate business and social contacts into Facebook. As one panelist says: you can’t “poke your professor,” referring to a Facebook nudging feature. Amanda’s position is that social networks are solely about communicating with friends today. Brandon is more hesitant to open email than he is to a participate on a social network (it’s more fun) and perception that email is full of advertising, solicitation, and junk. Email is secondary in their world.  Here were a couple of questions posed:

How do you see your behavior change as you enter workforce?

August says that email will not be as preferred in the workplace, as today’s college students get entrenched as the next business leaders, but he’s not sure which network- likely something not yet conceived; Amanda & Brandon don’t think the shift will happen as quickly and email is still a professional platform for communicating to your boss or coworkers and the social network method of communication as not something they’ll integrate into their professional lives. 

How do you feel about branding/marketing messages being delivered to email?

The key message from the students? The more targeted, less intruisive it is, the better. All were more tolerant of opted-in email, but their responsiveness and acceptance will change day-to-day. The students all have a perception that if they are unsure of the email, then they will delete it as it may have a virus. Also, the myth persists amongst the college kids that the unsub functionality is a confirmation to spammers to send more.

The panelists prefer a more targeted, blog/content related email and less focus on coupon or deals. For instance one panelist won’t delete email from Apple, it’s “slick,” interesting, and not to freuqnently delivered. Amanda loves newsletters – Mediapost, blogs and anything with an immediately relevant content or subject. No panelist could define a specific metric of “too much frequency” but all wanted to know upfront what to expect when they do opt-in.