How’s this for a circle of life (blog wise)?
Just try to follow this… A while ago Paper.li burst onto the scene creating a lot of buzz on the interwebs. We had them on our radio show and shortly afterwards I started my own version “The AreWeConnected Daily”.
I also found out that you could opt of being mentioned. I wrote a blog post about it “How to OPT out of Paper.li”. That post was recently read by Courtney Parham who the wrote her own post. She makes some great points, yet I have a somewhat contradictory opinion and I found myself leaving a lengthy comment there. Her blog runs a usually excellent comment moderation system (Disqus) and somehow my entire comment was lost, so it’s now a blog post here, back where it all started!
Here’s my thought as it should have appeared on her blog:
Automation is usually not a good thing when it comes to social media. I automate only two things. Twitter Autofollow and this.
I love that it happens automatically. Here’s why. No matter how busy I am or if I’m away from the computer, my Paper.li will still get published everyday, automatically! Speaking of which, should I meet an untimely death, it will just keep going forever. (that’s another topic)
Although I “follow” tens of thousands of people (they all followed me first) I really don’t care much about the bulk of them. They might be spammers, broadcasters, or get rich quick tweeps. If my Paper.li started showcasing their garbage – it too would be garbage. That’s where Paper.li got it right. One of the best things about the newspaper is I can better direct who shows up in it. The people I care about I have on a twitter list (http://twitter.com/#!/mikeMueller/the-coolest-100-2). These are people who create, curate or engage others by sharing. It’s usually less than a hundred people. That’s who I direct Paper.li to pull my newspaper from.
Two things happen on a daily basis when my Paper.li is published and I like both for selfish reasons.
That announcement tweet goes out and pings 2 or 3 of those on my list? Yes it’s annoying to some but it’s also a digital hug or pat on the back. (yes you can also turn that feature off). As busy as I am, I might not have time to connect in a meaningful way with these 100 or so on a regular basis. More often than not that “hug” results in a RT from them or a “Thanks for including me” message. That’s a great time to re engage with them.
The other thing that happens (busy me again) is that at the end of the day I can zip over to my Paper.li and see what I missed. Totally selfish reason but once again, it allows me to possibly reconnect with someone who I haven’t in a while. They even have a great widget that can go on your blog sidebar (it’s on AreWeConnected.com)
I like that you can opt out from being mentioned, but as for me personally, why would I? I want the additional eyeballs to the stuff I’m sharing. I’m even going to share my comment on FB and Twitter (for even more eyeballs)!
There’s a bunch of people out there that don’t see the value in Paper.li and maybe this post will change their mind – or not.
How do you feel about Paper.li and what could you use it for?
Mike Mueller
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one,bought a cool orange one, and still rides a really slow one), he loves strong beer and good red wine.
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