Free Software Linux

Editor: We asked self-described social media junkie Steve Rubel for his tips on how to participate in online social sites like Twitter and FriendFeed without losing your entire workday. Here's what...

A good blog post is in essence a question; purposefully opinionated, or better yet, outright wrong. It demands interaction. The blogger's job is to provide the question, provoke debate, and invite the community at large to pool its immense knowledge and take the conversation further (which characteristic distinguishes the blogger from the journalist). The conversation is the reason why we prefer blogs. If it weren't for the dialog between writer and reader, we may as well just pick up a newspaper or listen to the damn radio. This is how it was always supposed to be. But typically, either this does conversation not really happen at all, or else it is so slow and disjointed as to suck the life out of the whole process. Blogging platforms and the blogosphere as a whole have failed miserably at enabling effective conversation.

There are many out there attempting to rule the face of social web and provide an answer to the time consuming-ness of being social on the internet. Names such as Google, Facebook, and FriendFeed have been at the forefront lately. Enter stage left…SocialThing, the newest contender to facilitate being social online.