Reputation in an online community

It’s doesn’t matter if you’re an individual or a company who’s reading this, because your reputation in an online community counts. After all, it’s the reputation you have, the engagements you make and the relationships you build that give you a standing of how much influence you have on an online community.

However, there are some taboo topics which are better not to include in the community discussion. A few weeks back, i came across an interesting conflict on Friendfeed (You can find me here) with Igor the Troll and the social media room community in Friendfeed.

Basically, the conversation began with Igor the Troll questioning Twitter’s ban on his account because of ethnic reasons with regards to the Gaza conflict. Below is a screen shot of one of the conversations.

The screen shot is unclear but you can view the discussion here.

I’m not here to flame Igor the Troll because I do appreciate his active contributions to the social media community on Firendfeed. However, forcing your personal viewpoints with regards to ethnic or religious issues can be touchy, and at times, best left unsaid.

This scene here has taught me 2 things.

1) Taboo issues with personal viewpoints should best be left unsaid. If the need does arise for you to say so, then maintain a non-bias and objective viewpoint by relating it as an example to the community’s topic. And in this case the use of social media in the Gaza war.

2) The power of social tools which aggregate are powerful. I talked about Facebook Connect and why i thought it would take off. But those who maintain 2 separate identities online (Professional and personal) ought to be careful about the social tools that they aggregate. (Your personal viewpoints aren’t always appreciated in some communities)

So think about what you say as you engage the community, a tarnished reputation is hard to revert.

What are some other ‘not to do’s’ when engaging your online community to maintain a decent reputation? Do share!!

Can Friendfeed kill off a blog?

Today’s entry is gonna be a short one, after watching supernatural with Vivian for about 2 hours, I’m pretty zonked out right now. Oh, just to let all readers know, I’m canning Monday “I’ts a wrap”. Why? Because its the time of the week where i get my lowest stats and secondly, my stats are kindda slipping… Ah well, the cost of not entertaining you all enough.

Anyways, I’ve been fiddling with friendfeed a lot and posing some topics here and there. The responses have been pretty decent and i’m loving the community in the Social Media room. However, one thing strkies me hard. Could Friendfeed actually kill off the blog you’re doing.

So take for example this post which I’m putting up, the organic discussions (Daryl, I’m borrowing this term from u) being discussed on such a post would usually be through the comments, sometimes a tweet. However, put it on friendfeed now and the entire conversation moves to friendfeed.

I’m mean sure, the stats would increase with a new group of people from friendfeed coming to see your blog, while stats are good, what I’m wondering is where the conversations are heading to? That is the main point of doing up your blog right? (Who cares about the advertisers who want your stats… right…)

My question now is

What’s gonna happen to the blog?

Are our blogs just used for posting up ideas and allowing the conversations to slip to Friendfeed? Or are the great ideas generated from the conversations still gonna be on the blog…

I don’t know, I’m still the new kid on the block with few followers, so those with mass followers, whats the response to your blog posts been like for u? In fact, any1 know of any company trying to monetize friendfeed yet? Would love to hear your thoughts (either here or friendfeed)

New MONDAY Weekly Updates & Just for Fun TUESDAYS

i just ate a whole tub of Ben’s and Jerry’s ice cream, the damn strawberry and cheesecake one, ugghhh, i dun really like the flavour but as long as it’s ice cream, it’s all good.

So I’ve spent the last hour prior to my indulgence, trying to figure out how to add a Technorati and RSS feed button to my website…. I felt guilty as hell when Michael was mentioning this but I hate the whole coding language thing and I’ve been trying to avoid it. I told myself when this blog hits 500 views, I’ll do it, and now it has! Thank you all of you who’ve been coming to my humble site! Now, i gotta get down to it, I’ll ask Sherm’s who managed to figure it out after an ordeal. plz help me…. See that wierd line out of my sidebar, damn i suck at this. Somehow the oldskool blog of HT,L was easier than that! lol….

But that’s another problem for tmr. I decided I’m gonna include 2 new segments in this blog.

So every Monday will be WEEKLY UPDATES. It’ll be a summary of all the entires I’ve done over the past week and if i come across any new articles or blogs that support my way of thinking!

AND

Tuesday will be “JUST FOR FUN” day. Now based on the number of reads i get, you ppl are suckers for videos and entertainment. So, Let me Entertain you!

Basically I’ll be sharing with you a more personal side to myself and adding a bit of fun to some viewers who might not be so concerned about Social media happenings or want to know the fun stuff social media has to offer. Its social after all, so of course its fun!

So if you haven’t RSS feed to my site, gimme 2 days to figure it out and i ought to have the RSS button and the Technorati button up. And if you really wanna a quick update of my site, just come on Mondays and Tuesdays, but you’ll regret missing the great stuff i have during the rest of the week!

It’s one here so next monday will be double the updates for 2 weeks, lol… Gotta get to work at 9! Sides, tmr will be the one that will be more interesting. Why Tuesdays for entertainment? As many of my friends will know, I always say Tuesday is the worst day of the week. Its neither the start, nor the middle , nor the end… So to brighten all of us up after a horrible day, I’ll do my best to help us out there!

Hmmm, when I figure out those 2, I’ll do Friendfeed too, and podcasts and vlooging and more twitter and more Digg.. Damn, I need to catch up!