Content, Outposts, and Subscriptions

Value your content

The first thing you should do today is backup your content - wherever you posted it, if you care about what you wrote, go ahead and back it up. I'll be waiting here.

While you're at it, go buy an external drive to backup your own hard drive. I lost two in crashes, so I know what I'm talking about. External drives are relatively cheap compared to the value of your work.

That's how valuable I think your content is. And if you take the time to cull information, research topics, and share what you know that content is even more valuable. Value it yourself. Content is the currency of the Web and the gateway to social capital.

Build outposts

There is a balance you can strike between curating your site and participating in social networks. Building outposts in sites like SlideShare, Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, LinkedIn, you get the idea. There are other kinds of outposts that are not online, but do make their way there.

For example, are you attending a PodCamp or a BarCamp? Those events are highly documented online, and you get the advantage of live conversations with people you might have met online. Communities are another kind of outpost. For example Marketing 2.0 built with Ning, and many others. 

With outposts, the content you create helps the community and it helps those sites grow as well. So remember to farm your own field first.

Subscriptions

Many have written recently about the demise of RSS. With sharing on sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, we are relying more on human filters. We pay more attention to what our network reads than we ever had before. We did the same with television, didn't we? It's part of what makes us social to have the same reference points.

Subscriptions are not going away. I'm in favor of RSS and a big user. With services like Feedly and GoogleReader, they are becoming an integral part of the conversation. I've been using Google Reader for a couple of months now. It's much easier to track what people are posting about and the community reactions with it.

If you want to keep up with what I'm doing, subscribe to Conversation Agent. This is where you'll find out about new eBook projects, community initiatives, what I'm working on, and the people who are doing great work in my network. It takes more than 140 characters to express something that could benefit you.

Staying in touch happens also by email. What I like: short, to the point messages that clearly state up front what you're looking for. Be honest. Please don't beat around the bush. That's a surefire delete. What I don't like: press releases, attachments, vagueness, and bait and switch tactics.

What about you? What gets and has your attention? What do you need to work on?

UPDATE: when a site has RSS, it's making it easier for you to syndicate the content to a reader, not another site. It means real simple syndication, not "real simple stealing" (got that from somewhere).

Comments

[Maria Reyes-McDavis]

RSS subscriptions are too handy for them to suffer demise due to social networks. I track everything in Google Reader, which helps me filter through massive amounts of information. Great reminders here Valeria!

[Jamie Favreau]

I am old school. I guess I like getting subscriptions by email. I will eventually switch to RSS. I like Google reader better then Yahoo. But I am a die hard Yahoo fan.

IF no one knows who you are it is harder to be found. Outposts are great so people know how to find you.

[Ricardo Bueno]

You know what Valeria, I need to work on backing up my content! I'm doing fine in the other areas (managing my outposts ok and I love my Google Feedreader; I couldn't live without it). But yeah, as for my own content...I need to work on backing it up!

[Scott Hepburn]

This ongoing discussion about the demise of RSS is interesting to me.

While I agree we're relying more and more on human filters, somebody has to create content, somebody has to find it and disseminate it, and somebody has to read it.

I'm a big fan of the social technographics ladder that Forrester published. I think it's a good model for assessing where we each fit into the social media landscape. Most of us are some hybrid of creator, aggregator, disseminator, commentator, etc.

RSS still has a place. If the majority of people use peer networks to discover new content, it seems to me the people who find great content -- often via RSS feeds -- are a critical link.

What do you think?

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Maria - keeping up to speed with subscriptions is the way to go for those of us who read many blogs.

@Jamie - there are a few, select, newsletters I still like getting by email. By and large, my email account gets filled so quickly, that I would have a hard time keeping up with it all. Indeed, outposts are useful to be known and meet others.

@Ricardo - go do it. I'll be waiting here. Seriously, backups are important. In my second hard drive crash (first one at work, I had backed up most stuff on the network), I lost poems and photos from my mother. Still miss them.

@Scott - good call on bringing up the social technographics ladder. To me commentator is also creator. If you read Taylor Davidson, he writes a lot about conversations he comments on and connects many dots doing that. RSS is very much a critical link in the online ecosystem, I agree with you.

[Eric Tsai]

Valeria, you probably already tried this but I've found using Feedly is another great alternative to Google Reader, makes the experience a bit more fun and pleasant. It basically takes your Google reader and aggregates it into a nice homepage with all your feeds, videos, tweets etc.

http://www.feedly.com

[David Blenko]

Thanks for the post. What is the best means for backing up Twitter posts?

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Eric - I'm familiar with Feedly, thank you. I haven't tried it yet, but those who have are very happy with the interface.

@David - over the weekend Robert Scoble and Dave Winer were talking about it on FriendFeed. See also this post by Scoble - http://tinyurl.com/lmb8gp