discobeta

On a daily basis, I'm being fed information from the following sources (listed in order of volume):

1. Google Reader
2. Twitter
3. Inter-office
4. Facebook
5. Other: GTalk, Digg, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed, personal email

So I've read or received a compelling piece of content and I want to share it. There is no shortage of ways to do this, and I often pause for a second, wondering how best to share, and who I want to read it. Here is the methodology I seem to have fallen into.

Share on Google Reader This is probably one of the most common ways I share information. But I'm also catering to the audience I know is reading my shared feed. I have a few friends who aren't interested in the majority of the social media information I read, but they might care about a cool map, tech review, sports story or music post. I also have a "shared" feed on this blog, so I consider this to be the most public and professional of my sharing options.

Save to Delicious I don't consider delicious to be an especially social tool, so anything I save there falls mostly into the "personal reference" category, like a cool fashion retailer, online tool or list of running trails. Admittedly, my delicious page is a tagging disaster (which is why I can't wait for delicious 2.0) and I use it mostly for information storage.

Digg it I generally Digg current events, such as a recently-published article of interest in the New Yorker, a tabloidy story or something I just generally want to spread the word on to a wide audience.

Share on Twitter If I'm dropping it on Twitter, it's either an immediately breaking story I hadn't seen from anyone else on Twitter yet (which is rare), a new tool/technology that will appeal to my Twitter followers or a video that has been making the rounds.

Share on Facebook Reserved for items I find amusing, timely or relating specifically to friends (i.e. a project they are part of). If I get a viral video or funny story, it's probably making it on here.

Stumble it StumbleUpon is probably the least-utilized of this group -- for me, anyway. I think of StumbleUpon as a receptacle of interesting photos, videos, tools and content, but not necessarily a resource to find information. There is probably a little overlap with delicious here, but there is pretty much zero chance I'm stumbling a really informative blog post or article.

And finally...email You're getting an email from me if you were foolish enough to include me on any group email list and I know you won't come across the content through any of the other methods I share information. And, obviously, since email is the least public means of sharing information, I'm sharing information just for one person, or sending something that may be deemed a bit too inappropriate to be shared to a larger forum.

So, how do you share information?