I’m beginning to grow weary both of the commercial social networks and their alternatives. The web outside of them was always more expansive and interesting than that which is caught within them. Its content is more usefully captured directly than through artificial filters. I would be more interested to read what my friends publish unconstrained in the personal space of their own website or blog than within the artificial confines of a social media stream. On a personal site, I decide on what content to present and how to present it. It’s my own decision and I feel more free about it.
The problems with this approach are mainly –
a) more and more people are abandoning such personal spaces and consigning their content to social media streams.
b) it is difficult to effectively capture what’s interesting on the web without the recommendations and filters provided by streams.
To the latter my best response is still RSS news feeds. A federated version of something like the old Google Reader would be better. (Not something like Digg.)
To the former, the best response is to nurture one’s own blog or site as an example, and to share to it, rather than to the streams.