The value of a review has dropped off since people latched onto the near “word of mouth” strength they held.

Now, like you, a review has to be checked for validity before we can trust such things.

Over the long-term, more checks & balances will be put in place, most of which will be to measure the value of actual people as much as they are the things we buy or recommend…

Social networking has, in my opinion, begun to show cracks in its facade. Just like you I’ve been leery of just about any connection I make online. It’s clear that others are increasingly as well. In the early days sites like MySpace didn’t even have the option for anonymity.

Another case in point is the unreliability of reviews. Amazon used to be my goto place for “real” user opinions. Now I have to screen the people giving the reviews to make sure they have been around for more than a month and have given more than 3 reviews.

People are beginning to realize that there is a price to pay. And I’ll tell you one thing, people hate it when they wake up one day and realize that they are a statistic being sold.

I’m glad you didn’t ditch me just yet though…

db

I’ve off-loaded the majority of those that are of the title + URL school of thought and concentrating on those who are actually conversing.

Also, I too keep away from what I call the “Ouch! Stubbed my big toe!” Tweets, which is just inane and not conducive to a conversation, or any other kind of dialogue.

The main problem is, what we’re saying and doing is ending up in other people’s lifestreams. So there’s that to take into consideration, too…

I have to admit I use Twitterfeed to populate my Twitter account, which I know a lot of people frown on. But a lot of people use the Twitterfeed approach and a lot of followers find it useful too. I have several feeds piping in, my main blog, my Google shares, and my Stumbles, so although each entry follows the format you deride above, it’s a fair reflection of what I’m doing during the day. I don’t think anyone would be interested to know when I’m out walking the dog, drinking coffee, chatting to my wife, or whatever. If I’m doing something interesting that isn’t writing related, like fixing a broken plugin or scraping clean an infected computer, then I won’t have time to Twitter about it, but will usually blog the experience later.

It’s horses for courses…

(Anyway, I thought you were a Pownce guy!)

db

But seriously, that’s probably the best advice to give to anyone new to this game…

However, because of the way Social Media & Networking function, there’s a healthy dose of self-regulatory control in place.

By that, I mean people like you will spot the fakers, tell 5 friends, who’ll each go on a tell a further 5 friends each — you get the idea, right?

For everyone involved, there’s a learning curve. For the fakers, it’s a damn steep one!

db

I think a lot of companies see social networking as an opportunity to exploit a pretty faced avatar to get people to friend them and shove marketing down their throat after the friendship is reciprocated.

we need to ignore these attempts so the company trying this technique has to actually engage the user and provide useful information to the social network.

What we’re beginning to see is the value of social profiles and how those leading the way in their niche accrue and then channel a great deal of value.

Further to this, this value is not only transferable, it readily translates into power and influence…