Boom!

Robbie 2.0

I’ve launched an effort to establish an independent online space for myself outside of Facebook.  Rather than generate new content there, I’ll post it to my own online real-estate and have Facebook import it automatically.

To help with this I’m experimenting with two new toys: Tumblr and Twitter. Whereas typical blogging is a format for publishing in long-form, Tumblr is short-form, and Twitter is micro-form—limited to 140 characters. Both Twitter and Tumblr allow people to follow others, meaning you can decide to listen in automatically on what certain people post without them necessarily needing to listen back. (Imagine one-way friendships in Facebook!)

Accordingly, rather than e-mail selected—often random or rotating—groups of people whenever I encounter something they might want to know about or when I have a random thought, Tumblr and Twitter enable me to post thoughts, pictures, links, and other resources to a public space, more like emitting a beacon than contacting anyone directly. Whoever wants to stay informed can do so a few different ways: (1) by visiting the websites directly, (2) by joining the services and following me, and (3) by subscribing to the RSS feed each service generates.

Also, Tumblr allows you to integrate your blog into your own domain name seamlessly and easily, which explains http://rdotm.com

These are interesting communication vehicles on their own, but they also fit nicely with Facebook, which for me remains more of a static presence that happens to hold photo albums. In Facebook I have set it up to have my Tumblr entries imported as Notes and my Twitter updates updated in the Twitter application within my profile.

I elected not to have Twitter update my actual Facebook status because, at least for now, it seems like overkill to generate newsfeed items every time I change my Twitter status

Onward.

UPDATE (June 2009): When I first explained this blog to friends, I spoke more about wanting to have control over what was floating around about me on the Web more than staking out digital property.  Turns out Anil Dash wrote a more complete explanation of that reasoning back in Dec. 2002 in a post called “privacy through identity control”.  Worth the read.