Yesterday I had the great opportunity to participate in a podcast with Frank Angelone of the Social Tech Zone to talk about the always-intriguing topic of how early adopters gain influence and the role social media plays in personal and business life. Frank, who did a very professional job teeing up questions and drawing out stories behind the development of this blog and how I interact with entrepreneurs today, highlights in his summary of the discussion that there is no true "right way" or "wrong way" to participate in social media, and that works for one person may not work for another. We discussed how louisgray.com got started, whether one should obsess over statistics, and how important comments and engagement are to bloggers.

I hope you find the conversation interesting. As always, the full content is below:

With so much hype around casual social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, the world's largest business-oriented network, LinkedIn, gets less press, and less is discussed around properly using the site, in contrast to others. But practically everyone recognizes the utility of the service. They may use it to post their online resume, and connect to current or former colleagues, but for most, activity on LinkedIn is done infrequently, and many of the service's features, including Answers, Groups and Recommendations, are given short attention.

From the February social media retreat that Ecademy Chairman Thomas Power and I participated in, you can see some of our thoughts on the state of LinkedIn below. It is a companion piece to YourBusinessChannel's work, including The Connected Decade.

my6sense, the iPhone application and API focused on hyperpersonalization and digital intuition - aimed to simulate your own sixth sense and surface relevant content, issued a new update to their app this week which goes beyond your selected RSS feeds or social streams and recommends items from the extended community that are very likely relevant to you. The idea? That as the application grows to know you and your personal preferences better over time, that it knows of content out there you may find very interesting, but didn't already have in your subscriptions list. It's essentially the same personalization that has separated the product from competition, but with a new wrinkle - the element of surprise.

As I've highlighted a number of times since I first was introduced to the app, and as I have grown to know the team and the technology through working with them at Paladin Advisors Group, my6sense's core function is to implicitly watch your behavior and learn through your own activity what content you like and don't like, what sources you like and those you don't, essentially curbing the growing issue of information overload, reducing the time you need to find the best content tailored for your interests from hours to minutes.


But even the most aggressive content consumers, like myself, can't subscribe to everything and find every article. As the number of people using my6sense has grown, the company has more data on what users have the most similar digital intuition profiles to you, and can surface relevant pieces of content that would score highly in your own streams, but don't require you to be subscribed.


These items, which are sifted into your "Relevance feed" in the app, are highlighted as recommended items. Should you want to subscribe to the source, you can just click the "+Subscribe" button and add that feed to your library.

Other feed and stream readers have also tried to surface content to which you are not subscribed, mostly by relying on what your social circle has liked. Google Buzz surfaces content of people you don't follow thanks to friends' activity, while Google Reader shows recommended feeds or posts that have proven popular. But the move is a small change in direction for my6sense, who to date has built their streams solely on the content you bring to the table.

The new update, available on the iTunes Store, is free, and is an automatic upgrade for existing users.

Disclosure: my6sense is a client of Paladin Advisors Group, where I am Managing Editor of New Media. My comments on the company's product are always independent, and do not pass their way in advance.

Facebook's streams, serving its approximately 500 million users, are a little quieter tonight, as for whatever reason, it seems people are unable to "like" any items, and trying to do so results in a database error. One is prompted to contact customer support, but no contact information is given. It's a little bug, but a prominent one on a site that is not only one of the biggest on the Web, but easily the most active social hub for families, friends and casual acquaintances.

The "Like" functionality made its way to Facebook after FriendFeed had added the feature back in 2007, and now this simple gesture has migrated to other services, and even to Facebook's comments itself - except tonight, there is no liking on Facebook, meaning you will have to leave an actual comment on friends' threads or photos to indicate you actually did... like... the content.


With no failwhale to show for itself, it is unclear if this bug is simply a hiccup or an issue of scale. Facebook has managed much better uptime records than other services, including Twitter, but there is no doubt unprecedented technical challenges can arise from the smallest nuances when spread across a global network.


If you must "Like" items, you can still go to FriendFeed, or give a "like" to Google Reader items and Google Buzz. Those databases are doing just fine.