The information is literally a “barrage”.  I am guilty of skimming. But, for certain kind of news,  like announcements, I feel skimming is sufficient.  There, I commented My first one today.

Most everything out there you have to skim first just to know if it’s worth the time to read, let a lone share. But many bloggers count on catchy headline to get shared knowing that most of those people won’t read. 

Thanks you for the comment. You rock!  

When I share links, my goal is to add something to each tweet or Facebook post. That way I have to read it and digest it to bring something of value to the table. That also keeps my link sharing down to a manageable amount.

I know, coining a headline has become an art form.  So many are misleading, or just don’t make any sense.  You’ve got me going today!

I think this is a solid approach and something I used to do as well. But (as a blogger) I sometimes feel guilty because the author may not see that commentary (which is incredibly valuable feedback) unless it’s left in the comments, which is why I’ve challenged myself to comment more. 

Thanks for sharing and being so open!

I fully agree. Sharing is done a bit too frequently by people who end up using even Twitter as a virtual sharecan - when it should have been overlooked instead of retweeted. I end up unfollowing such people. Thanks for bringing this subject to our attention. A retweet is on its way…

Great challenge Tac. Yes, I’ve shared “blindly” before and ended up getting called on it from a friend. So, being intentional matters. 

I think there’s an interesting dynamic in your challenge. Speed vs. quality/value. I know I sometimes want to be the first to share a good link and do the skim/click method. But if I slow down (emphasis on slow), pay attention, and remember my goals, I want to share high-quality resources with my network. In other words, I want to value their attention. That takes time. And maybe hacking a better process. 

As always, thank you for sharing. 

I’m up for the challenge as well.  I agree, sharing is done way to much.  It’s already not even my content I’m sending out, I’d atleast better read it before I send it out. 

I totally agree.  It’s already often not even my content that I’m sharing, I’d at least better be reading it before I recommend someone else does.  Isn’t that what sharing is, a recommendation.  It’s like, hey “read this book” and I’ve only read the back cover. I’m up for the challenge Tac.

You got me thinking about what I do on twitter (and probably about using tumblr more): I mostly tweet shared “likes” from my google reader. THe frontend I use is @feedly. Via reader2twitter (http://reader2twitter.appspot.com) what I share on reader is tweeted and buzzed about. I can say that I have read everything I share in this way, sometimes finishing the read after sharing it. Some links I share are annotated via the “share with note” function of google reader. Where I lack is commenting and contributing. Improving number and matching a modicum of quality with my comments would make sharing links less like tossing a finished newspaper page into the gutter and more like putting the scissors to work and glue and file it for further reference (to stay in the picture .

Let’s see if I can meet your challenge. Try I will (starting now)…

My pleasure Nathan. Thanks for the comment  

I would love to be able to do an analysis of the all the links I see over the course of the day and how many of them are actually new. Even with filtering apps like My6Sense I see a lot of duplication. 

Guilty +1

Or like in high school when “some people” just read the cliff notes and wrote a book report on the topic? 

The ease of sharing tools (especially via mobile) make it easy to share and hard to comment. Even in Feedly I try and open the browser and share via Tumblr and if I’m mobile I usually go back and leave a comment after I’ve shared (it’s easy to find because it’s in my Tumblr). But this is also why I said comment on half of what I share, because it’s just not possible to comment on everything. Nor is it always needed. 

Yeah, can’t comment on that one,  the whole “kettle calling pot black” thing. 

I continue to worry about how much we crow and focus on all the amazing tools we have for sharing stuff, and not about the lack of basic writing, storytelling, story capture, emotional investment, financial investment, or even interest in upping the quality, originality and skill at which we compose and build things to share.

If i have thirty toilets with webcams connected to facebook, twitter, google+, tumblr, posterous, amplify, youtube, plurk, color, flickr, instagram, buzz, wave, wordpress, blogspot, typepad, vimeo, itunes, blip.tv and turntable.fm, the most interesting experience you’re going to have is still watching someone take a crap.  Make no mistake, most of whats out there is not significantly more valuable or better told than that.

Great challenge. I don’t see how the social sharing that’s gone into hyperdrive since the increasingly widespread adoption of Twitter and then over to Facebook, which was originally used nearly exclusively for more personal updates, will be able to continue indefinitely.

I see people sharing intensely for months or years and then getting frustrated as the number of people responding and the number of responses drops off over time. People crave responses and in the current form, the barrage of sharing has created a situation where many feel they don’t have enough time to sift through what comes through their streams let alone comment on it.

I think your experiment is indicative of what will happen naturally in the next 5 years or so. People will refocus on their friends and those they care about, which quite often includes celebrities, reality TV stars and a handful of thoughtful bloggers or virtual “friends.” The average person won’t push so many things out haphazardly but instead will be more deliberate and focus more on conversations rather than superficial likes or shares.

We’re heading to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7VgNQbZdaw or are here already. I’m optimistic that more substance shall return one day.

You use Disqus, that solves 80% of the comment problem right there.
I never comment on sites that make me sign up for -yet another- account. The spam to my e-mail is one thing, as is the process of sign-up, wait for conformation, confirm, re-write comment, forget password next time I want to comment, rinse and repeat. 

There is no reason other than selfish obsession with numbers for any site that relies on blog posts for content to NOT allow one-click logins and such.

Rock on. 

Great challenge. What’s your POV on leaving a comment-worthy comment? Is any comment is better no comment at all?

You’ve got an excellent point. Everyone’s just trying to up their personal volume. Perhaps we should invent a quality sharing algorithm, based on:
1. Amount of content scanned vs. Amount of content shared
2. Amount of content read vs. amount of content shared
3. Amount of comments vs. amount of content shared 

That’s interesting it would work out well like a self governing system. I like it. 

I totally hear you. It’s hard because you don’t want to leave just a “great post” comment but if you don’t have anything to add I like to point out and maybe even quote the part of the article that I really liked. As a blogger I find that very useful feedback. 

I totally agree. This is a big reason why I said only comment on half of the posts because some systems are just way to complicated to comment on. 

Fantastic point!

It’s nice to know I was trying to do the right thing in the first place.

Sounds good to me. It’s what I thought I was trying to do, but it does delay the instant-conversation aspect of Twitter. Now I see how others were managing! No, I think I’ll keep doing it this way. Thanks for making the point.

Alright.  I’m in.  You totally caught me, too.  I often share out without fully reading.  Sometimes it’s because I figure I, too, can go back and look over my tweets or posts and read them when I have more time.  But, that time often doesn’t come.  

As someone who struggles with blogging (both from a time and some self-doubt), I also think that we owe it to give some more robust feedback to people who take the time to write thoughtful posts that we find helpful.

[...] the last month I’ve been trying to practice Tac Anderson’s challenge and here’s what I’ve [...]