Why is it ‘share’ rather than ‘post’?

Well .. we’re more inclined to share with our selected audience than post to the world at large.

IF .. we control our selected audiences, that is. Right, wrong or gray .. let’s look at a proto-social map:

• I have close friends and family
• I have friends with whom I have personally interacted on projects, or through connections
• I have people I ‘know’, due to a mutual introduction or reference
• I have people of whom I am aware, because of a mutual interest.

These audiences have different attributes. While some overlap, there are items I’d share (or avoid sharing) because of mutual .. or lack of interest.

Is this a privacy issue, or something else? Quick tangent: ‘Social Networking: The “Third Wave” Explained’ tells an interesting (and relevant) tale.

Back to topic .. it’s both .. and more:

• Privacy dictates content (location and status .. what and how I might word something to a particular audience).
• Context dictates a “who cares” attribute. My non-game playing friends aren’t too keen on my Mafia Wars posts, so I send these updates to a special list of MW players.
• Timing dictates when I’ll share a particular item .. I might hold a business blog post for the wee hours to ensure it’s above the fold when the business audience logs on.

Whoops .. did I just introduce a temporal aspect?

Why yes, yes, I did. A significant component of ‘Information Snacking’ is when you are where and what you seek to do:

• During the day, I’m in work mode .. I don’t want to be disturbed with notifications from the Gap that my jeans are on sale.
• From Friday at 6pm to Midnight and Saturday from 6pm to Midnight, I’m in ‘party’ (such as it is) mode .. where I want to hear about special deals in my vicinity.
• I’m in church (or should be) from 6am to Noon on Sunday, so don’t bug me.

Yah; there’s not much granularity for the general public here .. deal with it. I’m trying to prove a point. The ‘ideal’ system is expected to provide you with a level of control over what you will share; on what you will be alerted as you go about your day .. regardless of the daypart in which you find yourself.

The ‘ideal’ system will also apply the context of your location and your ‘mode’ (as defined above):

• where you are dictates what you want to see / do
• when you are dictates in what you might take an interest
• what you seek (selecting ‘mode’ carefully) helps a system tailor results to your current (temporal and location-based) interests.

Food for thought. Let’s discuss.