we organize

we track

we recognize patterns,

we aggregate

we correlate

we disseminate,

we seek channels

we create channels,

we generate a bow wave

we surf in the search wake,

we curve space time with topical focus

we frame drag with our observation of the observations,

we plan, strategize, accumulate and postulate

and we say

As you pass through the Twitterverse you create a bow wave and a lifestream wake.

The larger your Twitter follower network is, the longer and more powerful your Twitter wake shall be.

Your bow-wave is represented by your incoming followers. You get noticed through the public timeline and by the downstream of your followers, then others start to “follow” you, forming the bow.

Your wake is the ripple of tweets and new followers that may fractal off of your own individual tweets.

First Contact
When does a “friend” have the right to make first contact with you online?

If I want to contact you in a social network like Pownce, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, should I be required to already know you? If I’m restricted from contacting you before you recognize me, how can I get your attention? On Twitter I can follow you like a stalker without you even acknowledging me. On Pownce anyone can contact me with an initial ping.

What Gives You the Right?
This is not a “pick on Pownce” post, I think the team has created a great system, as has team Twitter. In fact I think Pownce is a far more beautiful site than Twitter… and… there are significant differences between the two sites “first contact” user experiences. These differences spawned a question in my mind. I asked myself, “when does another person have the ‘right of first contact’ with me?”

Social Spam
Recently I received an email based ping sent through Pownce from someone on mySpace, asking me to follow their band on mySpace. I didn’t know them. I’d never heard of their band, yet there they were in my EMAIL inbox. That’s right, Pownce let’s people email me with band spam before I know who they are. But wait, Twitter allows people to contact me before I know them also, what’s the difference? On Twitter I don’t need to do anything, except delete an email from my new follower. Due to the highly specific nature of the Twitter service I know immediately what the email is for, it’s either a “new follower notification” or a direct message meant for my eyes only.

On the other hand the email from my example Pownce user was not even a request for friendship, someone simply sent me band spam under the guise of inviting me to an “event”. I then had to mentally process the email and make a decision about what to do with the request. I had to visit Pownce before I even realized that the request was truly spam and I received absolutely no personal gain from the effort. At least with unsolicited “follower” emails from Twitter I receive value because my personal brand (such as it is) may be expanded with a new follower, even if I choose not to follow the other person in return. Pownce has a similar “follower” feature, but again upon receipt of an email request I’m required to visit Pownce to see if I know the person, or care about interacting with them. For some reason I get many more “junk” requests through Pownce. For each one I need to make a choice about it. I physically need to click a button in Pownce, where in Twitter I can simply ignore the request if I choose to. Pownce requires me to mentally and physically process each new request.

But Wait, We Can Control Our Interactions, Can’t We?
Yes we can turn email notifications on and off for the various networks we participate in. But I believe part of the point of social networking should be that we can interact with one another in a low touch manner. We should be required to put as little effort into the act/methodology of interacting as possible in order to focus on the context and content of the communication. Especially since there are hundreds of social sites we can now use, with more launching every day. I’ve heard more than one person complain about tying to keep up with their current networks, so we need to work on making things easier, not more difficult. The rules of interaction and first contact should not be uniquely obtuse to each network.

On my old school business network, LinkedIn, the method for first contact has been well thought out and has served them well for many years. I must first know the email address for a person I want to contact, or I must go through a trusted third party who serves as a quality filter for my inbound contact request. Before I can bother someone with my email in their inbox I need to establish my authority, my right to make first contact. Due to the nature of the LinkedIn network, social pressures influence me to not spam people who I don’t know with unreasonable requests to connect within the network.

On Jigsaw the right of first contact has been taken to an opposite extreme. I can BUY your contact details before you know who I am. I pay for the right to gain access to your phone, email and mailing address details. Now Jigsaw isn’t a social network, but the point is that my first contact rights are being sold to people who I don’t know. This puts me at a disadvantage should the purchaser of my contact details decide to use my information in the wrong way. Yes I can request to be taken out of the Jigsaw database, but again this requires effort on my part to opt-out of the process.

Today I logged into InviteShare in order to add myself to a list and try to get an invite to dznr.org. To my surprise I actually had mail waiting for me in my account. Hmm, that’s odd…. upon reading the “mail” that term is really the wrong word to use. The better term is “invite spam”. The note reads:

Hi XXXX…I’m looking for some invites, I have…

August 21st, 2007
from sonicxboom
Hi xxxx…

I have got an excellent (if not the best) under-ground site for you…

- Every & any tune from new to old…rare to popular, ( all free, of course ).
- Millions of p2p users with full D/L speeds…always!
- 10,000s of users to choose from to get your tracks / albums.
- Simple search bar user-interface to find all tunes.
- Pure p2p…No Ads…all shareware, no fees…( just donations, if any ).

If you’re interested…I woule like to trade you the details of this site for any invites…like:

Supertorrents… Oink… TL… or HDBits…if you’re interested.
This site only does Music and I mostly download series, films & Pc games.
I always keep the best ratios i can 1:1 +
Please message me if you want more details…

Many thanks & kindest regards,

Sonic x Boom.

Do We Need a CAN-SPAM act for Social Interaction Permissions?
in my mind the question over “rights of first contact” in social networking is exactly the same debate that we had several years ago regarding opt-in and opt-out for email lists. At that time the debate was somewhat resolved with the CAN-SPAM act.

Do we need to legislate the right of first contact or can our industry solve this burgeoning problem of social spam before it gets to the point where lawmakers take notice?