This post is based on Today, Twitterectomy. Tomorrow, Jaiku and Facebook, something I posted on my personal blog this past Monday.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we use social networking communications tools as part of our work life. I also posted Changing the Face of Mobility - It's more than Casual Computing here yesterday. For me, the unified communications tools I use to maintain my social and business network (the line between them is very fuzzy) are directly tied to the mobility tools at my disposal.

Although I've been a huge fan of Twitter since its inception, lately the signal-to-noise ratio has become more noise and less signal. As a result, I swore off Twitter for at least 7 days. I have to say the impact has been small, but nonetheless felt.

Twitter was great while it worked. Critical mass has begun to marginalize its value. Initially focused on SMS, the addition of an IM interface enhanced Twitter, but the IM link has been broken for quite a while now. Direct messaging capabilty quit sending via SMS. And the noise volume rose dramatically. Still, Twitter is an interesting and useful way to maintain an IM chat sort of contact with key friends and colleagues.

One thing Twitter did was fundamentally shift me away from almost all instant messaging clients. Sure I have them, but I don't really use them. SMS/text messaging has become the real IM tool I use. I use the others, but sporadically, and less than I have in years.

There are a couple of other interesting approaches - Jaiku and Facebook.

Facebook also has some issues, but has been really moving strongly into the forefront recently. It works nicely via SMS for messages, both updates and direct messages. The mobile web site leaves a bit to be desired, but the full web interface is quite comprehensive and loaded with new applications and tools. If you haven't looked at Facebook for your social network, now's a good time.

Then there's Jaiku. If Twitter is microblogging, as some call it, Jaiku is microaggregation with a new, elegant look. If you look at my Jaiku stream, you'll see things I update from all these sources:

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  Jaikus from kencamp
  

  
  
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  Digital Common Sense
  

  
  
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  Twitter / Ken
  

  
  
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  kencamp's Photos
  

  
  
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  Realtime Community | Unified Communications
  

  
  
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  Ken’s VOX blog
  

  
  
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  Ken Camp on blip.tv
  

  
  
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Twitter, for me, is what we call a "back channel" of chatter. Sometimes useful, sometimes mindless. It's a stream that can become a torrent of noise. Jaiku presents what I think of as a lifestream of information. Because I've chosen to share all those feeds, if you add me as a contact in Jaiku, you see an entry when I post here or on ay of my other blogs. You also see when I post a picture on Flickr, or a video. In short, you move into pretty close contact with what I'm up to.

Because my social network and business network overlap so heavily, this has become a really good way to stay in close contact with people - friends and colleagues. For the people I've actively engaged with, I'm far more in tune with what they're doing and thinking. And we're talking more; sharing ideas more.

These are all emerging tools for social networking. I did note this in one of my other posts on the broad subject:

There's an area that applies to social networking that all of these YASNs (Yet another social network. And yes Twitter, Jaiku and Facebook are just as muchs YASNs as Orkut, Tribe and Friendster) face. There's a privacy issue that none have ever done a really good job at. That's because they've all leaped into the present without thinking about identity management and the future.

Friends is too binary a decision point. Yes or no are the options. Users need granularity of control regarding layers of friendship. And the old ring of trust security model won't do. It never worked. There are privacy issues with user identity, and with friendships and trust relationships that have eluded every YASN approach to come along the pike. So far. But that can change. It will change before long and the game of social networking willl invent itself anew.

For me, social networking is another aspect of unified communications. They're part of how I manage my work flow and my life flow. And while my friends and colleagues are certainly business people, I wonder about enterprise business people. The folks who aren't in the middle of these technologies, but in other industries - health care, insurance, finance and the like. How do you use these tools, or do you use them at all?

How do you maintain and sustain your social network of family, friends colleagues, co-workers and customers? Our lives frequently include all of these people as part of our scoial network

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, YASN, social networks