Dom Pannell's Blog

Twice last week I was asked the same question

"So, which online networks do you still mess around with?"

Ahmed, who I've known since we did the Cass MBA - eight years ago - and Graham, who I've known since we hung around Ada Knight's garage drinking homebrew, listening to Spacemen 3 and avoiding doing any homework - about 25 years ago - both asked me this question over beers last week (actually it was a bottle of Côtes du Rhône in Grazza's case...).

I thought about not posting this, 'cos I'm not sure I want the world to know where I hang out online, but then I realised that I owe it to my three avid readers to let them know where I waste several hours every week (day?).

I also realised that it could be fun to write a potted history of my life in online communities, partly as I've realised I had to think quite hard to remember where I'm a member (and I'm still not sure I've got them all).

For them wot can't wait, my current and most likely ongoing haunts are:
- First Monday: a place I regularly visit - I often pop in for a few minutes at a time when I'm at work 'cos it's very effective as a 'breather' between tasks. It's an unruly, sweary place where people tend to get to know and trust one another. I've worked with a dozen or so members over the years, several have become good friends and I am quite happy asking the advice of FMers (I generally get at least a few sensible answers!)
- LinkedIn: essentially an online Rolodex, although it has recently added a useful 'Answers' facility. I pay to have benefits on LinkedIn (well, my employer does) and I definitely think it's worth it for sales leads
- Xing is like LinkedIn, but with more community features built in. I don't use it that much, mainly because I find it rather clunky to navigate, but it can be extremely useful in order to find and contact people, particularly in German-speaking countries [NB they're talking about Xing on Radio 4's The World Tonight right now]
- I'm on Ning - I had abandoned it, but am giving it another go because Justin Kirby invited me to join his vbmaNETWORK... mind you, if the navigation doesn't prove any better, it'll be a short-lived experience!
- Facebook... yeah, I'm on FB, but really only for fun. To be honest, I object to people who invite me to do 'professional stuff' on FB... I'm a Zombie Ninja on there, for heaven's sakes!
- oh and I 'tweat'

Other places
- I have a MySpace profile, but don't ever really log on
- Ditto Ryze. If I lived in California, I might use this site more
- For many years I was a keen member of Swedish community Shortcut, but the longer I've been out of Sweden, the less relevant it has become to me. In the end, I decided not to renew my membership. I'd still recommend it to Swedish-speakers though.

One place I don't go:
- For about five years, I was also a member of Ecademy, but I became thoroughly disenchanted with the way the founders/management run the site, particularly their uncaring attitude towards the people who helped create the site's content and their shadiness when it comes to describing the site to potential members/investors/the press. After challenging the management (all of whom I know personally) about the veracity of their claims I was kicked off and my complaints erased from the site. It turns out that my exit was part of only one purge conducted by Ecademy. One of the more recent ones was reported on El Reg and on The World's Leading blog.

I heard they had another purge of doubters recently.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

[EDIT: 7th August: I just noticed this entry over at Ecad. It made me chuckle - thanks Nikki! /EDIT}

Posted by dompannell at July 30, 2007 10:31 PM