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Groups: The Secret Weapon of the Social Web - ReadWriteWeb

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Groups: The Secret Weapon of the Social Web - ReadWriteWeb
Description

Social interaction online is not very sophisticated. The newsfeed model of conversation has taken over the social web, from Facebook to Twitter to FriendFeed to MySpace, but by itself it doesn't serve us very well.

That's where the creation of groups of sources comes in. Various services have different ways for users to separate their "friends" into different groups, viewable by topic, category or type of connection. Facebook is making changes today to make it easier to break your Facebook Newsfeed into groups. That's going to be very important. The best Twitter applications offer group functionality that the site itself doesn't. MySpace offers no such feature, yet. The Facebook news prompted us to try to articulate the value of group creation online. By better understanding the value that groups can deliver, we can better strategize our creation of groups.

First we'll discuss four ways that small groups separated from a full river of news can help you use the social web more effectively. Then, for context, we'll briefly contrast this with the value of the full stream of information. Using both together is more useful than merely limiting the full stream to a manageably small group of sources on a given topic or of a certain priority.

Forgive me if this is all obvious to you, I know it's not to everyone. Even if it is, I think there's value in discussing fundamental qualities of emerging methods of communicating. The assumption in discussing these values is that you're an ambitious knowledge worker. If that's not the case then this logic may or may not apply.

The Value of Groups

Prioritization

Pulling high-priority sources out of the full stream and putting them in a special place enables you to catch more of the high-value information those sources publish. Why lose valuable messages ...

Original URL
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/groups_the_secret_weapon_of_the_social_web.php

Comments

  • Public Comments

    • Jack D. Logan Jack D. Logan
      7 months ago


      Isn't this the WWW; it's not a series of lists, is it? We need to move beyond lists - to, ... ... ... a WEB!

    • leontalbot leontalbot
      7 months ago


      Excellent article !

    • Sandrine Prom Tep Sandrine Prom Tep
      7 months ago


      And in the end...the basic principle and thread of social (- outside true friendships) connections has always been and remains shared common interests...call them groups or whatever...the good old "communities" are back in through the 2.0 front door with faster and more direct tools to share...

    • Sandrine Prom Tep Sandrine Prom Tep
      7 months ago


      And in the end...the basic principle and thread of social (- outside true friendships) connections has always been and remains shared common interests...call them groups or whatever...the good old "communities" are back in through the 2.0 front door with faster and more direct tools to share...

    • Paul Roberts Paul Roberts
      7 months ago


      I wonder what the next move will be. How open will one person's groups be to others - how discoverable (searchable) will they be to sharing and generating discussion and new ideas?

    • Melissa hajmohammad
      7 months ago


      seems to be the new way of advertising since companies are trying to find ways to cut costs without going bankrupt.seems that everyone is tweeting,facebook,and twittering,seems to be more social networks coming around too.

    • Melissa hajmohammad
      7 months ago


      seems to be the new way of advertising since companies are trying to find ways to cut costs without going bankrupt.seems that everyone is tweeting,facebook,and twittering,seems to be more social networks coming around too.
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First Posted By

Darcy Bross

First Comment By

Jack D. Logan

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