In a recent spurt of activity, we at WikiProject Oregon have stepped up our social networking game by creating a Facebook group and an identi.ca microblogging stream.
I’m sure most readers are thoroughly familiar with Facebook, so I’ll take a moment to explain what identi.ca (eye-dent-i-ka) is all about. Similar to the 140 character notices of Twitter, identi.ca is that and more. For what it doesn’t yet have in visibility, it makes up for as a Creative Commons licensed, open source platform which is already being improved by its users. Following many in the Portland tech community, I chose to embrace this endeavor, if only for the simple fact that the project (and the people behind it) adhere to the same values of free culture that WikiProject Oregon itself does. Look for announcements of our posts and events on identi.ca in the future, and please feel welcome to join our Facebook group (even if you’ve never hit that edit button before).
July 24, 2008 at 5:02 pm
posted by Pete Forsyth 2008/07/12 at 11:03 AM
Thanks for doing that, Steven. I’m not sure all our readers do know what Facebook and Twitter are, though.
This whole “microblogging” thing is very new to me, but I’m really liking it. It’s basically a way to say what you’re up to, without writing a whole blog post. You’re limited to 140 characters (which is not entirely arbitrary, because it allow crossover with cell phone text messages — VERY cool.)
Basicaly, it has all the flexibility of blogging, and all the social aspects of the “status” area of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
You can “follow” your friends without having to wait for their approval; and anybody can “follow” you. You can also direct-message people, which means that they’ll get a message both on their computer, and on their cell phone (assuming they have opted into that service). Very convenient.
Identi.ca doesn’t have that text messaging stuff set up yet, but it’s on their list. Anyway, this is another promising way for us to stay in touch with each other…thanks for the blog post, Steven!