Should You Rent or Buy Social Real Estate?

Photo: Abandoned farm shed by serendipitypeace2007, modified under a Creative Commons license.

Anyone looking for a place to live invariably needs to first answer this question: "should I rent or buy?" Each has pros and cons.

If you rent a house or an apartment, you control your own destiny. It's easy to get out if you want to move. Then again, you're limited in what you can do to remodel.

On the other side, owning real estate has advantages too - a tax break, flexibility and potentially a lot income if you flip it later on. The downsides? Lots. You can't easily sell in a down market and you're on your own when it comes to repairs.

The same can be said about choosing where to participate online. I had this discussion recently with a colleague who asked me why I am investing all this time in building Twitter's "equity" rather than doing so on my own blog, which I have been writing for four years now. It was a rather thought-provoking question.

Running a blog on your own domain (even if you use a hosted provider like TypePad, as I do) carries with it lots of perks. I can remodel pretty much any way I want as long as I follow proper blog protocols. I can track my returns - Google Juice, subscribers, comments, traffic, leads, press quotes, etc. TypePad really doesn't realize the same kind of benefits that I do personally by writing this blog. Then again, it has downsides too. Namely, Twitter has community built right in.

Investing time on Twitter, on the other hand, truly is starting to feel like renting. When the landlord is doing a good job, everyone is happy. When the landlord is negligent, the tenants get testy and threaten to move. I now view Twitter like a summer rental that you hope doesn't get hit by a hurricane while my blog is casa de Steve. I may be alone here.

It seems to me like "renting" online equity is now what's in vogue. Long-form blogging is less prevalent because the competition for attention from pro-bloggers is steep. That's why I love the Friendfeed model. It's like a co-op. I can invest in my blog and realize benefits not only here but also on Frienfeed. Or, I can invest in Twitter and see the same return on Friendfeed, though certain provisions apply. You're still beholden to the landlord.

I remain a fan of all of these services. However, the big question on my mind of late is this: where should we invest our time and sweat equity online? Will people continue to build equity in sites like Twitter that have community today, but most likely will be gone one day? Or should we look for hybrids like Friendfeed where we can take control?

If the marketplace for online equity is as cyclical as the real estate biz, then change is a given.

links for 2008-06-23

• 
  
  Study: Having 6,141 friends you don't know may be beneficial
  
  
  "Students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st-century skills we want them to develop to be successful today,"
  
  
  (tags: SocialNetworking culture teens research Stats)
  
  


• 
  
  We're connecting - and wasting time - on Twitter
  
  
  "The San Francisco-based network has all the makings of an Internet phenomenon with vast potential for social, business, political and cultural applications"
  
  
  (tags: twitter SocialNetworking microblogging)
  
  


• 
  
  Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Who needs analyst firms anyways?
  
  
  Fascinating discussion about the potential impact on the big analyst firms from “Open Source Analysis” who offer insights up for free.
  
  
  (tags: analysts opensource Trends)
  
  


• 
  
  Universal Edit Button
  
  
  Service highlights web sites that are editable.
  
  
  (tags: Wikis icons)
  
  


• 
  
  Info Overload: The Problem - ReadWriteWeb
  
  
  (tags: continuouspartialattention Overload attentioncrash attention Trends)
  
  


• 
  
  Info Overload: What Can We Do? - ReadWriteWeb
  
  
  (tags: Trends Overload attention attentioncrash)
  
  

links for 2008-06-22

• 
  
  Dipity
  
  
  "Dipity is the easiest way to make and share interactive timelines about the people and things you care about."
  
  
  (tags: timeline tools)
  
  


• 
  
  The Microfame Game and the New Rules of Internet Celebrity -- New York Magazine
  
  
  "There’s a new class of celebrity powered by the Internet. The stakes are smaller, but the rewards are within anyone’s reach. These are the rules."
  
  
  (tags: celebrity Web2.0 Trends fame)
  
  


• 
  
  The ECO-SAFE Foundation
  
  
  Make your blog easily printable and PDF friendly.
  
  
  (tags: environment green Tools Blogs Widgets)
  
  

Three Little Tips for Capturing Info Bits Quickly

I consume a lot of information - all of it, digitally. In fact, I recently completed the transition a 100% media green state. I continue to use Gmail as a nerve center - my primary capture system. But sometimes, I want to flag something quickly to review later. Usually, these are tiny bits of info - notes or bookmarks - I need to capture very quickly. Here are three ways I do that.

Use the Google Web History for Quick Notes

Google offers a handy history feature that archives all of your searches by date and time. You need to have a Google account and activate it. Once you do, the search engine will remember every search and  search result you clicked. You can star items and even subscribe to either your history or these bookmarks as a feed.

If I am on phone with someone and I have an idea I want to capture real quick, I go to the search box in my browser (which is always open), type in my quick note and search. Now it's archived in my history, which I can always go back and search later.

Annotate Bookmarks and Feeds with a Private Friendfeed Room

Friendfeed has a feature called Rooms that you can use to share links with either the public at large, a small group of friends or just yourself. The feature is great on many levels, but it's especially handy as a private info trapping system. Here are two ways I use it.

The first is to grab this bookmarklet and start capturing stuff you find in the wilds of the web and stuffing it into your private room. You can annotate it in the process. In addition, later on you can go back and leave additional notes as comments. All of this is searchable too via a box in the upper right hand side of the room. In addition, all rooms can be accessed on a mobile device via FFtoGo.

The second way to use this is to start importing RSS feeds into a private room. This essentially sets up a mini private River of News that you can also review, annotate and search later on.

Use a Link-Trapping Service for Reading Lists

The final tip is to use a link-trapping service for compiling articles you want to review later. There are three I have experimented with - Instapaper, Readbag and LaterLoop. Each of these services saves bookmarked articles into reading lists. They offer bookmarklets and other tools for easy flagging, a personalized RSS feed as well as mobile versions that strip down the articles down to just text for low-bandwidth reading on the go.

Of the three, LaterLoop takes the cake for two reasons. First, it keeps a running archive of all the articles you have read. You can go through these and star items for later. Second, it lets you download virtually your entire archive for offline reading. I use this all the time when I am on planes. It's invaluable.

Those are my latest tips. Enjoy!

Measure Traffic with the Google Web Site Trends Bookmarklet

Google yesterday added a significant feature to Google Trends. You can now enter in URLs and get back rather rich site traffic data. Barry Schwartz has a great rundown. I will have more to say about this shortly as I play with it over the weekend. However, in the meantime, I wanted to share this bookmarklet I created.

All you need to do is drag the link below to your bookmarks. If you're on a web site and you want to know its traffic is, just hit the link and if it's big enough to be in the Google Trends database, you will get back data.

Google Web Site Trends This!