I've never had any interest in collecting friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter or mutual subscribers (a phrase introduced to replace the term friend) on StumbleUpon. That doesn't mesh with my philosophy of valuing relationships.
I'm also not one of those people who uses StumbleUpon as nothing more than a tool to drive traffic to my website. I enjoy the social aspect of StumbleUpon and it's not unusual for me to send a note through share as a way of connecting with a friend, not simply to share content which might be stumbled.
Some people, though, only send shares to ask for stumbles. You send them a note, as a friend, and they ignore it, only to send another share asking for a stumble.
It was interesting to me when a mutual subscriber, whom I would not refer to as an acquaintance, let alone a friend, one that always ignores friendly notes and only asks for stumbles, responded to a note I sent saying the site they were sharing, over and over, has a bad reputation on Web Of Trust, a great add-on for Firefox.
Yes, eLearners.com has a Poor Reputation on Web Of Trust. If it were one of the "most popular sites on the internet" would that be a guarantee it's operation is squeaky clean? Not necessarily. If it generates over $1 million or $1 billion per week is that a reason to trust the site? No.
I don't trade stumbles, I don't stumble everything that comes across my stumble button and I don't expect anyone to stumble everything I send them. There are "friends" or mutual subscribers who aren't worth having, people who only want to use you to promote their content are at the top of that list in my book.
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1 comment:
Interesting post, I think people often forget that when they are online the same rules apply as in life - treat people as you wish to be treated. Using someone online or in the offline world never works.
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