The Real Problem with Social Networking (and also, I'm a nerd).

As of this posting, I am now on no less than four networking sites--Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Plaxo, plus the hybridized, partially-network-based LiveJournal and Google Reader--and I am running into a major issue: What do I share where?

This is a problem I first started having with Not Providence (note the subtle pimp) but which has since spread to my Internet experience in general. I give NP a by because I can't know whose feeds are going to overflow on what site and I'd rather maximize exposure, but that's a PR/self-marketing issue, not an issue of Internet etiquette. With things that are not so important as a writing career, I never know how much sharing is too much, or when I've crossed a digital boundary.

Some things are obvious, of course--News items go in Google Reader, short anecdotes of the weird go to Twitter--but where do I mention a new movie, or how I'm feeling, or something of that nature? I'm drowning in options, and what's worse, I feel like every one of my options needs regular care just to make sure it's clear I'm alive and actually a participant in this whole Internet thing. I realize there are programs to allow me to share across multiple networks, but the truth is, I really hate those things. Not only does that sometimes cause glaring mismatches with update styles (though that has lessened somewhat with the removal of Facebook's automatic "is"), but it means that people who follow me on multiple networks are that much more likely to start treating what I say as mindless noise because of its redundancy--something which is already a high risk on Twitter.

And God, if that weren't enough, I really need to update this blog more often.

So here I sit, having just updated everything that needs updating...and both dreading and loving the need to do it all again. Because at least now, once I get this figured out, everything in my slice of the Internet will have a place.