Oh no! Is facebook becoming my blog?
For about a year now I have been cross posting twitter updates and blog posts from here (Parking Lot) to my facebook page. I have started noticing that people comment much more on facebook than here, with almost every post receiving a comment or a “like.”
What concerns me a little, is that the great conversations that happen on facebook don’t happen here on Parking Lot, and that if you want to read them and take part on facebook, you need to be friended by me in the big blue walled compound. So I am wondering how to import the conversations from facebook here and vice versa, so I don’t have two things going on at once and so that everyone can play.
Thoughts?
I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ve even done some experimenting and discovered that there’s a difference between linking to a blog post and importing it as a note — the notes get read and commented on, and almost nobody follows the link. Same content, different behaviour.
For many people, Facebook *is* the web. As if anything outside of those walls is “Here Be Dragons” territory.
Not sure that there’s any way to get comments out of there…
Hmmm… if it’s of any interest, the reason I rarely comment here is because we read your blog on our email browser (feed). So to comment, we have to click through to your actual site, and leave a comment, here…
We don’t do facebook, and, quite frankly, I have enough difficulty getting time to keep up-to-date with my emails, newsfeeds, and the Bowen Forum; I’m not willing to add another site.
Call me lazy. But truly, my lack of conversation means nothing about our interest in your blog. Both Markus and I read it daily. I hope it doesn’t shift further over to Facebook.
I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers have moved to Facebook and many of them are doing less blogging which I’m sad about. I’ve not joined FB despite many invitations because I don’t have time for it. I do read blogs via a news feed but don’t have a problem going to the blog to comment, as I’m doing now. Though I don’t comment often, I do read your blog regularly so I hope you’ll stay the course! Sorry I have no answer about how to bring comments over…
Well don’t worry, I’m not switching this blog anywhere, and please read away in feed readers and other ways. The only reason I haven’t been blogging much is too much travel!
Chris–
Don’t know about either of these, personally:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordbook/
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/20-facebook-tipstricks-you-might-not-know/ (see tip # 13)
:- Doug.
Install Disqus or IntenseDebate, which allow comments to cross post to Facebook (and also allow people to to use Facebook logins here).
That being said, I’m importing my new personal blog into Facebook, and yes, I get lots of interaction from “regular folk” there.
Unfortunately, comments on Facebook are a one way trip – they can’t come out and play on the open web here.
All we can do is beg you to stay on the web, rather than hole up in the compound 😛
Chris — too much travel, though unfortunate for island life, at least hopefully means you’re inspired, too!
Boris: stop moving your blog around! We keep losing you!
I have experienced the same thing. Blogs are a thing of the past (strange, I know). Twitter, and linking to blogs from Facebook are one possibility. You can also limit what content is passed through your RSS, but that actually has a negative effect in which people are less likely to read your blog because people don’t read blogs through website, but RSS readers. Facebook has just become another RSS read.
My friend, a social media guru, said to me when I asked him for advice on this. He said, “My philosophy is to give the people the content where they want it. Don’t try and make them come to you, but give them the tools to get it where they want it”.
Discussion on Facebook, Websites, or anywhere else just becomes another venue for it. Although unfortunate it doesn’t cross over (but perhaps there are ways as I’ve noticed in the suggestions above), it’s something that happens. I suggest building your twitter account and building your audience there. Good blog discussions are rare because people are blogging less, and reading blogs less frequently (and I think blog posts with over 500 words are less likely to be read…)
Ah, the mindless progressivism of the future…
Well, so far, there are more comments here than on your Facebook note about this! Though I am going to share your note on my page, as I’ve had the same experience & have been thinking about it a lot lately – and if there are comments from that I’ll bring them back here (and/or will my Facebook friends who aren’t already connected to you be able to add comments directly to your note? How does that work?)
I haven’t blogged hardly at all in the year and a little bit that I’ve been using primarily Facebook to share thoughts & links & events (I still have not gotten to where Twitter feels like home even though I’ve been on it just as long).
I also note that I don’t read blogs much anymore – in my RSS feeder I subscribed to about 150 blogs and I ended up feeling overwhelmed even though many of them didn’t update very frequently – plus, I couldn’t read the comments in that format. Now what’s happened is that I find that I only read the blogs whose URL’s I know by heart! On the other hand, I’m connected with about 500 people on Facebook (many of whom also don’t update very often) and it feels entirely digestible.
I appreciate what Dustin’s friend says…and at the same time I get what you’re saying, Chris, about wanting to share over here what’s happening over there…
Thnaks for the links Doug and for the thoughts from others. I like facebook but it will never be the primary way I post to the web because I detest people putting up fences on the internet. That is why my status updates there are generated by Twitter and my notes are generated by the blog.
The only regret I have is that the rich conversation – even about status updates! – don’t show up in the world without me porting them all over by hand. And not to mention ethically having to ask people if that’s okay.
So I guess for the time being, I’ll just keep doing what I am doing. If you want to join in on facebook, send me a friend request and I’ll add you.
That is because you are an admirably integrated and transparent person, Chris (I mean that truly) unlike some of us who present different personae in different contexts, have a variety of selves that are not so totally aligned. In which case Facebook, walled as it is (and yet obviously still “out there” in a public space) feels somehow “safer,” where I can be more aware of whom I’m speaking to/with.
i love this blog, read it often and Chris, I can’t find you on facebook! i don’t like facebook and though i do have a page i never post, just read what others do… what they like and don’t. it seems superficial somehow.
i wonder if there is such a thing yet that aggregates and synchronizes comments across blogging and social media platforms, a kind of meta-rss. i guess not?
and for now we dance around the Great Blue Wall?
Thanks for sharing the challenge, chris. on the one hand i’m grateful for the feed-like value of something like facebook and on the other i share your concerns…
and it’s fascinating to hear that some people- many/most people?- have stopped reading blogs. if that’s true, that is a rather frightening indicator of the pace of change we are dealing with on the Net.
curious to hear if you find a solution.
warmly…
Is blogging over already? I’m just trying to get “into” it. I’m trying to use it as a forum for thinking about research/policy, questions, issues so for me it has it’s purpose. It’s so true though that tweets are really the way things have gone now. I’m trying out posterous which is pretty handy it can update your twitter, facebook, and your blog all at the same time.
I like your blog Chris because I like the way you think and you’re so great at expressing yourself. Facebook is okay, but I can relate to the dislike of it. I think it’s useful if you live far away from home and you can catch up with your friends and still feel a little part of their lives even though you’re far away. I think I email less though because of it, it’s easier to log in to facebook and get up to date with everyone in an hour or two. Isn’t that horrible!
I don’t think blogging is dead at all…I think many more should be in it, because as you publish your research on a blog I can link to it. I can’t link to great stuff people put on facebook, and so publishing there is not really sharing.
Keep it open! Sharing is indigenous! 🙂