Synchronizing the Social Web

It was a social experiment, and I am happy with the result. I just wanted to see how far I can really push this social media thing. Initially, I was apprehensive about doing it, since I had to provide a lot of information for others to see. Then I realized that a stranger is a friend that you have not known yet. With that in mind, I went in 100%.

I had a Facebook account last year and a blogger account since 2008. Both weren't active.

In fact I terminated the Facebook account last year. I restarted it again this year. Here's the timeline:

Timeline:
I joined Plaxo first then LinkedIn . Can't remember the exact date, it should be somewhere early February or late January 2010.



6th February 2010.
Don't ask me about the significance. It just happened, maybe it was a lazy Saturday. I joined Facebook and now with 107 friends and Twitter now with 73 followers.

7th February 2010.
Created Posterous blog account and first post on it. As of yesterday, it had generated 518 site views. I always wanted to write and I found at that point, Posterous was easy. I was intrigued by the idea of autopost.

Just emailed to Posterous and all your social sites get updated. It made things easier. So my blog does not remain unconnected and it gets the visibility in Facebook.

09 Feb 2010
Google buzz launched. I was already on Gmail and a lot of other google apps, it was just a natural progression. Anyway I think Google found that social networking is a key element of the next wave. They launched straight away without putting it on Beta. Gmail was taken out of its Beta phase only just recently. Right now I have 12 followers in my Google Buzz.

Google did have another networking tool before call the Wave. I loved the idea though I find it a little bit overwhelming. Anyway it requires an invitation. It's still a work in progress.

11 Feb 2010.
Burned RSS feed for Posterous. As of today: 7 subscribers.

14 February 2010.
Then I remembered that I have an account at Blogspot, and yes it was till there. Created Gazali's Thoughts and first post on this blog. As of yesterday it had generated 420 page views.

20 February 2010.

Burned RSS feed for "Gazali's Thoughts". As of today: 12 subscribers.

Somewhere around this time, I found blogger was easier to modify. Posterous was not that easy. It didn't integrate with adsense and I had to comb the HTML just to include Amazon. It didn't support Java and that was a big downer. I probably could easily modified the CSS/HTML. The thing is, I don't have the luxury of time. I then set out to find if blogger could do what Posterous did for autoposting.

In the mean time, I apologized to all my friends. You probably see a lot of double or triple posting of the same item in news feed on Facebook. I was just seeing how the things will work and I think its better now. Blogger worked like Posterous on autoposting. You just have to configure a lot more web application services.

Summary of how my post will propogated through my social network.
An article was written here. it could even be by email if I wanted to.

• Post fed into RSS feed about new article.
• TwitterFeed picks up the RSS feed. I wanted to use Ping.fm, unfortunately they were down for the whole of the week. They were being acquired by Seesmic. Maybe I look at it later.
• Shortened URL generated by Bit.ly through TwitterFeed. I have already signed up for Bit.ly. It gives an indication of how many people read the article.
• TwitterFeed then feeds into my Twitter account. This is the main where things get wild. My twitter account is connected to my Facebook, Posterous, Linkedin and some other services.
• Twitter will then feed the post into my Facebook and through all my other social networks.

I hope you understand. I do get lost in it, sometimes. That's how its under the hood. It is like a car.

I built up the engine and whatever components needed for the car and all I need to do now is simply turn on the ignition.

Of course there is some outages. Facebook was slightly down last week and so was Twitter. Sometimes Facebook updates my status from Twitter a little bit longer. And Facebook native Notes application updates a couple of hours later. Though it still get updated.

So, if I write a post, my Facebook and other social sites will get updated.

The ignition key
If I update my status on Facebook; my Plaxo, Blog and LinkedIn gets updated too. In fact its all connected to a certain degree. I could just go on Twitter and tweet something and everything else gets updated too. Similarly with the other social sites as wll

My next step is to have all my info synced consistently throughout my social network. So that is how my social network gets updated. I know, it looks complicated enough, and I will try to break it down step by step, for you to follow. There is obviously a purpose for this.

Do check back once awhile, or get connected through my Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo or LinkedIn accounts. You can also opt in by getting emails of my post or subscribing via RSS.

Feel free to comment and thank you.