Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

"My name is Peter, and I'm a social media addict" Have you ever run into a friend on Facebook or Google+ who posts that they "need to take a break from social media"? That their faith in humanity has hit a new low? Or that they are seeing too much intolerance, trolling, etc.? Social media has made many aspects of relationships more accessible: Viewing posts from friends scattered around the world can make you feel more connected to them, while the ubiquity of social media can often make it easier to get in touch with someone than more traditional, “offline” means. But social media also helps fuel feelings of isolation and self-doubt. A 2012 study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, for example, found that the longer people spent on Facebook each week, the more they agreed that everyone else was happier and had better lives. For some, that self-doubt can be countered in the same place it originates: through affirmin...

Everyone has their own individual style on social media. Here is mine, in a nutshell, for whatever it may be worth to you: First, my life is an open book, so virtually everything I post is public. The other reason I do this is because I think I have a message to deliver, and I want to be able to broadcast it effectively to a large audience. For circle management, I really only have two main circles -- "friends" - which is where everyone goes initially, and "close friends", which is a circle you earn your way into. More on this in a bit. When somebody circles me (which happens anywhere between 10 and 20 times a day), if time permits, I check your profile. A complete profile, with a photo of a real person, and at least a couple of posts so I can figure you out, will generally get me to circle you back. To get into my "close friends" circle - which is the only one I am really interested in, because that is the only one of my circles that has the notificat...

  OK, well instead of making guru-like  pronouncements, we decided to ask our visitors and users, since they know better than anybody! Here’s the Eggheadcafe.com Twitter poll . You can follow Eggheadcafe.com (new articles and new forum posts) on Twitter here .

I started out on Twitter maybe a year ago, then decided it was a waste of time. Then, for some reason maybe 4 months ago I picked up again. It might be that  Witty (a very nice WPF Twitter Client) came out, then I found the JAVA TinyTwitter app for my virtually prehistoric AUDIOVOX SMT5600 smartphone (which only runs compact framework 1.0) . At any rate, I currently follow some  88 active Tweeters (Twitterers? Twitterinoes? Twitterheads?)  and have some 62 or so following me. What I've done from the start is try to concentrate on following only people who I know (either personally or through other communications) plus some extras whose work I am familiar with and who may or may not necessarily be familiar with me. I've found that a good many of the people I follow return the favor by following me. I've focused mainly on the .NET developer crowd. If you cast too broad a net, you are likely to be disappointed with the incredible amount of noise you've generated for yourse...