Blog

Passive sharing is the new oversharing on Facebook

This article from Social Media Insider discusses oversharing on Facebook. The article mentions that since the introduction of Timeline in Facebook, advertisers have seen their engagement rates go down. This isn’t just a result of the redesign though, it’s about Facebook “broadening the boundaries of sharing.” There are less posts published by actual humans and more posts showing up automatically from integrated apps. This clogs people’s newsfeeds and ads fall by the wayside.

• Jenny just listened to Wham! on Spotify*
• Jenny read Why Popcorn Smells Like a Bearcat’s Butt
• Jenny rode 6 miles on a yak!

I wouldn’t even refer to this as oversharing. It’s passive sharing. I’d even go so far as to say it’s pointless sharing. When I think of oversharing, I think of self-pitying status updates that can at least garner schadenfreude. But this information is useless, much like non-alcoholic beer or another Chipmunk movie.

We’ve mentioned on this blog before about the pendulum swinging from oversharing back to dedicated, meaningful sharing (like in Glassboard!). When do we reach the apex? Will the Facebook Timeline eventually consist entirely of mundane updates provided by apps and not actual people?

At this point I’m not sure if I’d rather go back to a streamlined version of Facebook where advertisers have greater visibility, or keep things moving forward with Facebook Timeline. Which would you rather see?

Using Glassboard to wrangle your fellow Ween fans

It can be difficult to gather random groups of fellow concert revelers together. For a trio of Ween shows for New Year’s, Nick Harris and I decided to put Glassboard to the test for gathering our respective groups of friends. We all wanted to hang out together and needed something fast and simple to get everyone organized. Enter Glassboard.

Pre-gaming

It’s common that my friends and I will kick back at Chez Jenny and imbibe on cheap alternatives  than what a venue has before heading to a show. However, not everyone in the group knew where I lived and what the plan was. I used Glassboard to post my location. My phone number is in my profile so folks could text me when they were outside my building. We decided on Chinese food, so I posted a link to the takeout menu of a nearby restaurant. Some folks opted to simply post that they were pre-gaming elsewhere. Suckers.

Showtime!

Unfortunately location isn’t granular enough to show exactly where people were in the venue (won’t that be nice in the future though?), but we could post details like “front left staircase, under the chandelier.” It was extremely easy for everyone to receive this message without having to make sure you included everyone on a text.

Glassboard was also perfect because of all the media we could share with each other. Pictures and videos were posted during the show. I’m really bad at taking pictures, so thanks to everyone else!

Post-show

Every morning after a show Nick would post the set list. It was great to go back and say, “Oh yeah, I forgot they played that!.” Now we’re using Glassboard to coordinate some file sharing.

Using Glassboard enhanced our experience and assuaged any frustrations we usually have with organizing random people for shows. Basically, if you are in a situation that feels like herding cats, Glassboard can help!

Using Glassboard with Families

Happy New Year!

Like countless others, my family is large and dispersed across the country — and it’s nearly impossible to get everyone together for the holidays. This year was no different. There were a few factions who managed to organize some face time with each other, but no mass assembly. Given that we all have growing families of our own, it’s unfortunately not going to get easier either.

To help create more of a shared experience between family members, we created a single “board” in Glassboard and invited everyone to it. All told, it’s a board of 20 people with ages varying from 13 to 75. Since most of the tech-savvy folks in my family are my siblings, I expected most of the interaction on the board to come from us. We all have children now, and passing pictures around via email, while infrequent, was not foreign to us. But what actually happened over the holidays was entirely different. The grandkids and grandparents took over entirely. It didn’t matter that we were in three different time zones — there was chatter back and forth at all hours. It was as if they were in the same room.

What they’d talk about was all over the map. One of the more popular themes included pictures and the naming ideas for one family’s new dog, but there were also an awful lot of pictures shared from some app that lets you decorate virtual donuts. It was all great fun. The grandparents were always quick to respond with a ‘like’ or a comment, instantly and seamlessly connecting with their grandkids in a way they never had before.

As a parent I was more than happy to watch the conversation unfold. It was comforting that the kids (grandkids) had a safe place where they could share with their cousins, but more importantly they could build closer relationships with their grandparents who weren’t physically there. The best part of it all — the conversation hasn’t subsided since the holidays. Family members are still posting daily, and we’re staying in touch like never before.