Fragmentation

Lately there's been a real fragmentation of social tools online. Maybe it's been around for a while, but I'm really starting to notice it now. I first started seeing it on Gary's Black Diamond Blog, which was something he noticed as well. I'd seen it a little here as well, but since I started using Google Buzz I've seen it a lot more.

When I update here, in addition to alerting whoever has subscribed to the posts, I've also set it to update my Facebook page and on Google Buzz. The result is that people are commenting on the posts in three different places.

This is great in that I'm getting more total comments, and feedback is great! Still, I have two concerns. First, I can't help thinking that if everyone posted in one place I'd get even more feedback as people play off each others comments. Second, Facebook and Buzz are both fairly ephemeral. Posts on Facebook scroll off in a matter of hours, and the only reason that Buzz doesn't disappear even faster is that I only have three friends that have even posted to it yet!

The blog is more lasting. Posts to the actual blog can be referenced any time that the blog is referenced, which allows people to comment days, weeks, or even longer after the original post was made, which I consider to be a good thing. I recently got an encouraging post on my Panzer Tracks blog that hasn't updated in nearly a year!

Then again, Facebook and Buzz allow for more casual comments and digressions into unrelated topics, whereas the blog itself feels a bit more formal and constrained.

For now, I'm just happy that people are commenting.