I’m still recovering from information overload syndrome, and while not as “in deep” in the TechMeme echochamber, I daresay I’m finding more interesting posts as a result.

Engtech at Internet Duct Tape writes about the a new issue with “lifestreaming” that he terms “information pollution.” It asks people to figure out which of their sites contain their primary lifestream and not “cross” them with other streams:

The #1 reason why I unsubscribe from someone’s lifestream is because they’re repeating themselves too often. This happens most often when they lifestream with Tumblr and then include that Tumblr lifestream into Friend Feed. They’re creating a feedback loop in their lifestream, and that creates noise. [4]

A related result of people crossing their lifestreams is duplicate information. This also occurs when a blogger that writes a post, and posts its link to Twitter, delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, and even Google Reader to promote it across several social services.

In the past this self-promotion was no big deal as it was difficult to track an individual’s activity on multiple sites, but with FriendFeed, it’s very transparent – and annoying. A subscriber to that blogger’s FriendFeed shows several links to the exact same post, one coming from every service the blogger submitted it to, and since FriendFeed shows who did the sharing, the blatant “spamming” is quite obvious.

While I appreciate an occasional Twitter from a blogger linking to their own blog, I don’t appreciate it when the “dupes” run past three. This practice speaks nothing of the quality of said post, and at worst, subverts the intent of those very sites – folks submitting links to stuff they find interesting.

Now in this example I used bloggers – but the same goes for any company that uses social sites in this manner. It’s a big problem, and I daresay a huge reason why I don’t find Digg useful any more. Many social sites start out awesome as they build a community, but then marketers and spammers get wind of the site, soon everyone is pimping their own stuff, and eventually, everyone thinks they have to over-pimp their own stuff just to be heard above everyone else’s self-promotion. Signal is drowned by noise, and yet another site is clogged with cyber-pointlessness.

Some might call this “advertising” or “marketing” – I call any unwanted and excessive “marketing” by a more concise name: spam.

I personally am insituting some “green” self-policing to reduce my contributions to social site clutter:

• Let others share my stuff. That’s a better barometer of worthiness than me deeming it worthy. I place too much value on my own stuff.
• Share stuff other than my own.
• If I’m insistent on promoting my own stuff on social sites (which I’m not), I won’t broadcast those sites to FriendFeed. I’ll least be discreete about my viral marketing and not pollute FriendFeed (lifestream). Keep the stream clean.

Note: This is yet another reason why I love FriendFeed – It’s making me to think about how I use various social sites, and in ways for the better.

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