One of my aims when technology is involved in my life is convergence. I like it when services, devices or general concepts are integrated at some sort of level. If one of my gadgets is capable of interacting with another, even if only by linking to it via several other devices or services, I want to see just how far it can be pushed.
As a simple example, if I post some thoughts about Kazakh Driving from my phone (via a tweet), that tweet (which will originally appear at twitter.com) is then automatically published on this blog, and also then posted as a note in my facebook profile. (Actually it is duplicated in facebook, as I use a different method to pull in tweets as status updates. I think the notes version will automatically embed pictures from a post on this blog, where as the status update is obviously just plain text).
So… Tweet (twitter) >> Blog Post (chrismerriman.com) >> facebook note …
reply left on facebook note >> blog post comment created
Anyway, if people leave a reply to my post on facebook, in the past this would be split from any conversation that occurred natively on this site. Now, using the Facebook Comments TNG plug-in, comments left on any facebook notes are automatically imported back into this site. If friends choose to comment on my status update, this isn’t picked up, but I am happy to have at least some of the discourse unified in one location. If you happen to import your blog posts to a facebook page (most often this will be if you run a business or club), this can also be catered for.
Oct 20 2010
Spreading The Data Around
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