They May Look Different but, the Message is Still the Same

It's been interesting to follow the discussions on using other microblogging tools such as Pownce besides Twitter. Some writers have sounded somewhat defensive and upset over having to try one more thing. I don't think I could entirely explain what this jumble of PLNs, chats, and teleconferencing apps. means in the long run. I would have said Skype instead of teleconferencing, but I was invited to try out Grandcentral, which alleviates the need for paying for the Skype-In feature and it may have some other features I can use in place of Skype. Each of these apps. seems to have their own following or people experimenting with what is possible. I've never been bothered by using multiple tools interconnected to get the most out of each one, rather than dealing with multiple weaknesses of just one tool. After all doesn't this really come down to communication and the most effective method to carry out a discussion across the internet, one's network, and to also get enough people aware of your ideas that someone responds? In the case of webcasting for me it is that more people participate through listening and also exchanging ideas in the chatroom.

This whole quest to interlink these PLNs and chatrooms began now that I've become involved with the Webcasting Academy, I noticed that there are usually 2 or 3 or even more people posting tweets about events happening live on Edtechtalk. If I happen to be following the twitter stream I usually try and participate. Most of the time the chat room has between 10 to 40 participants. There is no shared calendar function in Twitter, so unless a person is following the calendar through the website or someone happens to post to a shared chatroom they rely on the haphazard method of following closely their twitter stream. Also when I check to see if someone has responded to something I've asked in Twitter, again I must be careful about keeping track of someone writing back. I'm fortunate now because I can use Snitter to manage and make up for deficiencies in several aspects about the Twitter website and stream I'm trying to follow. When I check the tweets, I notice several possible means through which people post either as a general message, using the @, or by using the direct message method. Again I rely for the most part on Snitter to help me keep track of everything that is happening within the Twitter stream. Pownce has two features built in such as a direct response to a post as well as a calendar for events to be shared by others in the network, built in, and this could help, but this isn't the point really of why I use it.

Someone sent out a tweet the other day about another app. called MoodBlast. It has a fairly simple interface and allows a person to simutlaneously post to several different points on the internet at once. I was impressed because they've built in a way to post to a service such as Facebook and omit words that will still be posted otherwise to Twitter, Tumblr, and Skype. So what is the point of learning all these different tools? Well I would like to see events that happen on Webcasting Academy and Edtechtalk to reach a greater audience. I would like to see the continued development of tools such as MoodBlast to make the need to stick with one PLN such as Twitter no longer necessary. Why would someone be bothered or mind just signing up for other tools if they can post their 140 word Twitter posts and yet someone on Facebook or Tumblr or Jaiku can still read what they wrote? Part of the problem for now is following all the sites, but I envision a time shortly in which this bother of which tool to use for one's PLN will be of less and less important as the forwarding will work both ways between sender and receiver.

Yesterday, I began to interlink as much as possible the different services. Facebook seemed to have the most options to bring in other social netorking tools such as delicious, twitter, and flickr. I had set up an account with Jott a couple weeks ago and yesterday I posted to Twitter and then it was automatically picked up and posted on my Facebook front page.

Now, I'm trying to get in an invitation to Jaiku, if anyone has one. There is a feature to use small icons to indicate what the micropost is referring to either music, writing, etc, possibly a way to let the reader elliminate posts that they are not interested in. It may look different but the message shared between it and everything will be the same.

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