Social Landing Page

I regularly get friend requests for LinkedIn and Facebook (I'm still dabbling with Google+).  One thing that neither of these sites have is a "landing page".  I'd like to have a web presence that lets me state my rules of accepting their connection.  Of course, none of these sites offer this because the strong social pressure to accept all links is part of the reason that they have grown as successfully as they have.  The fact that there is no good way of rejecting someone, other than ignoring them, is great for Facebook, but bad for me.

So - this posting is meant to resolve this.  I am being very selective on my social networking, and I have been since starting on LinkedIn.  In order to connect with you I'd like to know you well enough to ask a favor of you.  At a minimum this means that we have to have met.  Most likely it means that we have had a conversation long enough so that in six months I can contact you and remember exactly the context in which we met.

Since I use LinkedIn mostly as a means of being introduced to people, if I don't have a strong connection to my primary links, I find I have no social capital to ask for introductions to their links, and so the primary link is pointless.  Therefore, this isn't a beauty contest of who is "worthy" to be connected to me; it's just that, if I don't accept your invitation, I don't feel worthy of asking you for favors in the future.

Thanks for your understanding.

Flipboard and Content Creation vs Consumption and the rebirth of Facebook

Thanks to my recent success at the Tech Coast Angels event, I find myself with a new iPad (version 1). I had been wanting an iPad for some time, but could never quite justify the purchase. Since I ended up with one, I've enjoyed using it. And, thanks to the iPad, I've discovered something remarkable.

I've been a Facebook user since mid-2007. I should write an entire blog post on my initial love affair with Facebook and then my slow decline. I remember my first purging of (non-)friends, my first set of rules for directing work-related invites over to LinkedIn, my first concerns over privacy, my concerns over Facebook's dismissive attitude of privacy, my long period of absence, where I still had my Facebook account, but never logged in, and then finally my eventual joining of the many others who either suspended, or canceled their accounts entirely. I haven't been a serious Facebook user since mid-2009.

So what caused me to come back? In a word - Flipboard.

Flipboard has solved a dilemma I have had with Twitter and Facebook for a while. That is, I like to use this blog to project information, but I like to use Facebook and Twitter to consume information. By placing this information in the format that Flipboard does, I find it far more engaging than the chronological scroll-information-dump format that either Facebook or Twitter defaults to.

Adding Reddit was a lot more involved (see link) but I really see this as a great tool. I can't remember where I read it, but laptops are great for content creation and iPads (and the like) are great for content consumption. Apps like Flipboard really show why this is so.