I don’t know about you but I often find myself wanting to do more with social media sites, I want to know when posts on my sites are submitted, what my friends are up to, who’s going hot, who I should be begging to submit my posts because their submissions always go hot. Like many I’m fascinated with social media and the mechanisms behind them.
RSS – Backend of the social web
Most people will be familiar with RSS (really simple syndication) and the concept of feed Readers, sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Pligg sites like Sphinn all have RSS feeds for their up and coming and Hot posts. Many also offer additional feeds with perhaps Digg going the furthest by even offering an RSS version of search results. RSS provides a simple clutter free version of the site making it much easier to manipulate and combine several feeds providing a single source for you social fix.
Yahoo Pipes
Yahoo provides just the tool for the manipulation of feeds in the form of Yahoo pipes, there are others including tools from Microsoft and a much more advanced Mashup tool by Google. However Pipes is probably the best known and most used. Rather then provide step by step instructions on how to use Pipes I have found a selection of good tutorials to get you started. Remember to view sample pipes, rather then just the results you will need a Yahoo ID and be logged in
If you want to play with any of the example pipes then simply visit the pipes home page, and click the clone button this will create a copy in your account, just remember to hit save when you are finished.
Exporting Pipes
Once you have your pipe sorted you will want to import it to your favourite application, on the published pipes page you will find several ways to get your data, via email, phone or as we will more likely want by RSS.
To get the RSS simply choose the more options, then the RSS option, copy the URL and your there.
Pipes for Socialites
With the basics of Pipes sorted lets jump into a useful pipe. This simple pipe which is a modified and simplified version of one of Engtechs provides a list of submissions on Digg for a given site. With it you will not have to worry if your site is on Digg without your knowledge. RSS|Source Code
As you can see the pipe has just 5 components, though to be fair only two of them are of any note, the source which is the Digg search RSS feed and the Regex, of all the things that people are afraid of Regular expressions has to be high on the list, but in reality they are nothing to be scared of.
This example only works with Digg but to modify it for use with Reddit is not hard or any site which offers RSS version of their search which sadly most Pligg sites do not.
Demo Pipes for socialites
seeing your Digg submit is not the only thing you can do people have been coming up with hundreds of uses:
Keep in touch with friends, submits for example here is a pipe that shows submits on Sphinn by the Collective thoughts team. Do you have a pipe let me know so I can add it to the list.
When I started looking at my latest blogging performance, I noticed that my posts have been much shorter lately on social media. Much less than when I would primarily write about blogging tips and starting a blog.
Then, I started to look at some of my daily social media activities:
Reading RSS feeds of my favorite blogs (I hate RSS, even full feed - but they are a necessary evil. Still, I try to actually read blogs that I like)
Wow, all these activities are really fragmenting. Not super time consuming, as you can multitask, but fragmenting. Like 20 tabs up in Firefox and other apps all over the place fragmenting.
Can we really multitask as well as we think? Kathy Sierra, one of my favorite bloggers ever, would argue that we cannot multitask effectively. (By the way Kathy, if you read this - please, please return to blogging. The world needs you).
So, does this mean that I’m out of the social media space? No way! In fact, expect to see much more from me social media wise very soon
What’s the plan then, you ask? Easy. Instead of suffering from social media overload, look at a few other disciplines and tips for help:
1 - Focus. Getting hit from different IM’s, especially from offline ones when first signing in can really send you off in different directions. Actually turn off IM once in a while. I’ve tried this off and on over the last week or so, and some people were actually concerned
2 - Sleep. Whenever I get tired, but always wake up at the same time (for me, this is 6am). I first saw this on Evan Williams’ blog but it’s originally from Steve Pavlina
3 - Balance. Whether you have a physical / sports, religious / spiritual, art, or whatever outlet - use it. I’m personally a very religious person, and am glad that I am.
4 - Stop talking about social media to people that don’t care about it. Try not to talk everyone’s ear off about social media that isn’t in the space. My apologies to all family and friends that still don’t know what I do, but see that I’m clearly excited about it You know that guy that walks around with the hands free that looks like he’s talking to himself? Annoying, right? Don’t be him.
5 - Family time. Whether you’re an 18 year old social media pro or someone with a wife and kids, your family likes you. Walk away from the computer for a few minutes. You might notice that your kids have grown since you last looked at them
6 - Cross pollinate your brain. Find something opposite of social media to do for a while to let the social media parts of your brain recharge. You’re an SEO? Go do SEO (non-social media) work for your clients. You’re a zookeeper? Well, feed those seals already. They can’t live on Diggs alone! Learn some new skills or enhance ones that you already have.
7 - Unplug. Do something that’s not in front of the computer (since you’ll be tempted to Stumble it if it is something good). Read a book, watch a movie, do some knitting, cook, eat, play a game, jump out of a plane - whatever. A friend of mine even went so far as to go into an underwater cage where folks from above throw food down so that Great White Sharks try to get into your cage. He says it’s a rush, but I think I’ll read a book.
It’s fine to engage in social media snacking. Just don’t lose sight that life is the main course.
Welcome to the new wisdom of crowds. Each member of Collective Thoughts is here because not only are they a known or rising star in their own field, but they also have a passion and unique understanding on social media. Together, we make up Collective Thoughts. More
