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A Case Against Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, G+, and Triberr

October 23, 2012 19 Comments

I love all these services. I use them. I think they are great at helping people connect with one another. And they are the best thing a non-blogger can do to help his upward mobility. But.

But they can be a death trap for Bloggers. They can be quicksand if a Blogger is not careful. They can make you bet on the wrong horse.

Empires Fail

From Persian to Ottoman, across Greek and Roman, to Russian and German. One thing all empires have in common is that they fail.

From Geocities and AOL, across Friendster and Myspace, to …Twitter and Facebook?

Do you think today’s popular sites will be here forever? Not likely. And if Twitter and Facebook, along with G+ and Youtube, and every other place where we’re collecting likes, and follows, and friends, and points, go away tomorrow, what will you do?

What will you do?

I’ll tell you what they will do. They will take your likes, and follows, and friends, and points, with them into their cold grave.

Which means all the work we do will be for not, unless…

Everyone an Emperor

This is why EVERYONE needs to build their own empire. Sure it will fail eventually -all empires do- but it will be YOUR empire to fail.

And how do you build an online empire? Think about the direction.

It is fine if I bring people from Twitter and Facebook to my blog. However, it is NOT fine if I send people from my blog to Facebook.

This is the magic hat trick these platforms have pulled on us. They managed to convince us that placing “Follow me on Facebook/Twitter” is a good thing for our blogs.

And if you visit 10 blogs, 9 of them will have “Follow me” buttons in the most prominent areas of the page.

What we’re effectively saying is “dear reader, I want you to go sign up for these other services so we can interact there”.

Don’t Go There

People on Facebook don’t want to come to your blog. They wan’t to hang out on Facebook all day.

People on Twitter will “comment” on a blog post by tweeting back and without actually reading the post.

Let me make sure I am being clear. THIS IS WAR!

It’s war for the only finite resource that matters. It’s war for your Attention, and social platforms are winning.

Every time we post an update on Twitter, Facebook, G+, and others, we add one more brick to build their empire, and we subtract one less brick from ours.

Is Change Possible? 

You bet.

As a maker of Triberr, you may accuse me of being a hypocrite. Is Triberr not like these other tools?

First, good job in questioning. Always question. Second, Triberr is both the same and different, and here’s how.

Triberr IS the same in the sense that it’s vying for your attention. However, unlike other platforms, in exchange for your Attention, Triberr enables you to do what Bloggers do in a faster and more efficient way.

  • Read content
  • Comment
  • Share
  • Generate content
  • And most importantly, build an audience

Triberr is built by bloggers, for bloggers (nod to Danny Brown :-) ) So we spend a lot of time thinking how we can streamline everything we do as bloggers. See Time Management Platform For Bloggers.

I Have a Dream

I envision a day when all blogs will be one giant social organism seamlessly connected to one another.

I envision a day when readers will consume content on our blogs, and NOT on Twitters and Facebooks of the world.

I envision a day when quality content will truly surface to the top. When voices of dissension will not be suppressed. When weirdness will be embraced, and misfits will be nurtured.

THAT is the blogosphere I want to live in.

What kind of Blogosphere do YOU want to live in?

CREATIVITY, Mind Hacking
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  • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

    Hi Dino, I suppose the same could be said in reverse, why would Facebook or Twitter want to have links to our blogs that take readers away from their sites and brings them to ours? We get a lot of traffic from other sites that bring people to our blogs. When we share from our blogs, a pop-up window appears so we can share without leaving the blog (if you have a decent sharing plugin).

    You’re right, as empires fall, new ones are built. MySpace isn’t the power it once was, but Triberr’s empire continues to flourish. Pinterest has made a huge impact on social media this year, but so.cl not so much.

    We shall see which sites continue to grow, which never grow and which are withering, and adjust our sails accordingly.

    BTW, I like your sidebar widget: Follow Me…or don’t. Whatever :-p

    • http://twitter.com/dinodogan Dino Dogan

      I totally stole the “Follow Me…or don’t. Whatever” from The Pirate Bay :-)

      • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

        How very appropriate. ;-)

    • http://www.clichegames.com Anthony

      because all of the links and statuses people post provide all of the content for those websites?

  • http://twitter.com/RogierNoort Rogier Noort

    Agreed. We have to be able to move from one empire to the next. Triberr is a “middle-man” empire on it’s own. Already sharing to Facebook and LinkedIn (besides Twitter).
    The next big thing should be adopted too, and when the giants fall, we simple step over them and move on to the next.
    Sounds about right.

    • http://twitter.com/dinodogan Dino Dogan

      yup….see? You get it :-)

  • http://kexino.com Gee Ranasinha

    Hi,

    Firstly, I’d like to thank you for using our image to illustrate your blog post. But where’s the attribution? We offer our images under a Creative Commons license that requires attribution. Using any Creative Commons image without attribution is against the law.

    Furthermore, please not that our image usage terms are state that attribution include a live “dofollow” backlink to http://kexino.com and not to the Flickr page, as you have it at the moment.

    The usage terms are outlined on the image’s Flickr page – see http://www.flickr.com/photos/kexino/6336663225/in/photostream

    Thanks in advance for modifying the attribution.

    Best Regards,

    Gee Ranasinha,

    CEO, KEXINO

    • http://twitter.com/dinodogan Dino Dogan

      Hi Gee,

      Since I cant know for sure that it’s in fact your image, I went ahead and took it down just to be safe.

      Thx for letting me know.

      • http://kexino.com Gee Ranasinha

        You can’t be sure it’s my image? Then why on earth would I be asking for accurate accreditation and attribution?

        My company is “KEXINO”. The Flickr account is “KEXINO”. Google me and you’ll get more than 10,000 results, most of which mention KEXINO https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ie=UTF-8&ion=1#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=gee%20ranasinha&oq=&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=d122c11eddab7aa&bpcl=35466521&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&biw=1400&bih=761

        The Flickr account details for KEXINO lists me by name – http://www.flickr.com/people/kexino/

        Here’s hoping that you guys follow Creative Commons copyright licensing in future. Just because it’s on the web doesn’t mean you can use it.

        • http://twitter.com/dinodogan Dino Dogan

          I think you bring up a very valid point, Gee. HOW can we know which images used by Google Images (for example) truly belong to the creator of the image?

          Furthermore, -and Im not saying this is the case here- a great way to get some backlinks is to scour the Interwebs and claim images as yours and ask for attribution. Creating a fake paper trail “proving” the image is yours is trivial. BAM! Few easy links per day.

          The only thing worse than not giving attribution is giving attribution to the wrong source. So, to play it safe, I made my own image. Small problem solved. Now how do we solve the problem of Google using everyone’s images without proper attribution?

  • http://andynathan.net Andy Nathan

    I agree and disagree with you.

    First, you do have a great point that we should not be sending all of our hard won traffic to Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

    Second, glad you brought up the Triberr item, because that was my first reaction to your comment.

    Third, it is about empire building. Empire building vary rarely happens by going it alone. So, while the idea of ignoring Twitter and Facebook because they would do the same to us seems ideal, is not always realistic.

    We are using them, just like they are using us. Their empire is bigger now, but with time we can piggyback off their efforts to grow our own.

    That is how every great empire grew!

    Greece was initially a collection of city-states banded together against the most powerful empire in the world. However, they did not challenge Persia until after their strength had grown significantly.

    When Rome first started looking out to the world, they did so slowly at first by conquering other local city-states in the Italian peninsula over the course of 100 years.

    When Rockefeller got started he was not able to make significant in-roads into oil refining, until he received special discounts from Vanderbilt.

    Google at one point was partially owned by Yahoo. In fact, when they launched their IPO, I believe Yahoo made out with about $10 Billion in profit.

    Every empire receives a boost off the previous. Today we look to Facebook and Twitter. As we do so, we see the same trend continuing.

    So, I will use Facebook, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn until my empire has grown significantly stronger. Will it help these platforms. Yeah! But who cares as long as it is mutually beneficial.

    Andy

    • http://twitter.com/dinodogan Dino Dogan

      Hi Andy,

      Thnx for a thoughtful comment. I do tend to overcorrect, dont I :-)

      As Bloggers, we need to think very carefully to what extent we rely on these sites. I’m afraid that at the moment, the level of reliance on these sites is obscene.

      • http://andynathan.net Andy Nathan

        Dino,

        Over correcting might be a tendency of great blogging!

        I just got all of my Google traffic wiped out for no reason recently, so I know what it feels like to have a 1/3 of your traffic disappear for no reason, because an empire had an idea.

        At the same time, I know you keep playing their game, until you get bigger and stronger then them.

        You and I live in the US, even though some(read: alot) of their actions are obscene. You play the game until we can change their actions.

  • http://twitter.com/suddenlyjamie Jamie Wallace

    I couldn’t agree more.
    Your customers are your most valuable asset. Why leave them in the hands of a stranger?
    Have you read this lovely piece of news about how Facebook has deliberately “broken” its post distribution (dropping reach down to an average of 15% of fans for any given person or page) … just as they rolled out their (exorbitantly) priced Promote feature? http://dangerousminds.net/comments/facebook_i_want_my_friends_back

    If that doesn’t raise red flags for you …

    • http://twitter.com/dinodogan Dino Dogan

      yup, I agree. HUGE bait and switch.

    • http://twitter.com/netbillboards Internet Billboards

      I like your comment Jamie. I like the way you are thinking. Will check out the link.

  • http://www.cendrinemarrouat.com Cendrine Marrouat

    Excellent article, Dino, and so true! As I always tell people: Make sure that they know where to find you, because if social networks go down the drain, people will be gone as well!

  • http://twitter.com/netbillboards Internet Billboards

    Great points you have made here Dino. I would like to mention that the real value in all this is the relationships we are all able to make. The friends, colleagues, partners, business associates etc. I know if Facebook was gone tomorrow, that I would have my esteemed friends.Whether we interact on Twitter, Facebook, or my site the core connection is always there in my head and in my heart, as I hope it is with them. This is what is important and I know you know this Dino, but I just wanted to remind everyone and now you can all come hang at my site LOL (-;

  • http://impactreputation.com/ Mindy Koch

    I think that is true about every tool we use to help build our empire. We have to use what we can while we can.