Let’s Vote Triberr Off the Island

Hi Kellye,

I had to come out of “vacation mode” for a few minutes to read the post, all the comments, and add my two cents. What really struck me was @dinodogan:disqus’s comment about the number of blog comments you usually get and that “not enough people are seeing your writing.” What, based on comments? (On that front, then Seth Godin’s blog is an abject fail.) And who are these “people” that are missing out? 

This is my fundamental problem with Triberr (I’d have to go back and check, but I know I left a similar comment on @twitter-29827578:disqus’s post. It’s this equivalence that’s being made between numbers and value. That having lots of comments or big giant audience is inherently more “influential.” 

So my Klout is lower than your Klout–but with whom? Lots of people have small communities, but if they’re made up of the people they want their voice in front of then then I’d say their blog is darn effective. 

I also think @43d9c2bd223401dc64832600f1a24c4a:disqus hit the nail on the head when he said that “it seems the benefit is on the ‘tribe’ first and the community second.” Without the implicit reciprocity, why not just create your own ‘tribe folder” in Google Reader? This should work just as well since everyone using Triberr keeps saying they’re not automating posts — which means the old fashioned valuing your community and your community will value you stuff should continue to work just fine without a new automation tool.

My own opinion is that if a post is worthy of tweeting, it’s worth my two minutes to read it and my 2 seconds to hit the tweet button.

PS: Sorry I missed #solopr yesterday. Must have been another lively conversation.

Hey Daria,
It seems that the thrust of your argument, as well as Kellye’s, is that you’re perfectly happy with your RSS readers brining you content and you manually reviewing and sharing it. I think that’s great. If that setup works best for you, then no need to change anything. 

But I think it’s also good to be open to the possibility of improvements. One day something is coming to come along that does a better job than your RSS reader. Is that Triberr? Not today it isn’t, but it might be tomorrow. 

Keep an eye on how the tool evolves. There is a passionate community forming around the site, and it’s not because they want to spam their followers. People like it, because the potential of a network is greater than the potential of an individual – both in reach and in curation. 

You don’t have to change your opinion. Just keep an open mind at what the site may look like in a few months. And don’t forget to check out my post on quality scores (http://triberr.com/blog/sneak-preview-quality-scores-come-to-triberr/) 

Marc, I have a big, fat middle finger for you.

Hi Gini- I took Saul’s comment to mean that, like you, he is not compensated either. But thanks for clarifying that point for others who may have read his note the same way you did. Those of us who know you well know that you’re a passionate advocate for tools you love (no payment required!).

Humor is always appreciated here at Solo PR Pro — well played.

I won’t belabor the point, except to say that to me, there is no such thing as automated curation. Humans curate, and just saying “I’m going to share stuff from this circle of cool people” does not pass muster.

And I must say, I find your vision for the future/Google comparison quite chilling. That is why I wrote this post. “Content creation is a job that can be improved with automation” — I vehemently disagree. Not in the social media that I love.

Kellye- I was with you and Neicole several months ago: http://www.socialmediawannabe.com/2011/03/trouble-with-triberr-andor-twitter.html
It largely comes down to the expectations that one has writing and sharing their stuff and then getting it in return.
One thing that slightly bothers me the more I think about it- you can’t shortcut natural community growth. Either you are putting out good stuff that people want and they will flock some what naturally or they will not. A tool can be used to assist that- heck, isn’t that was Twitter is by itself?

Everyone who likes Triberr comes back to the trust element and suggests that they only use it because it is a small number of folks and they trust the content that is going to be put out = human curation. Whether it is active or passive, they believe that something they are going to broadcast is worth doing. You don’t need a tool for that other than an RSS feeder and some time- which comes back to the other main point about making their life easier. Everyone wants and deserves that. I rely on people I follow to point out stuff I should read and subscribe to, but didn’t need a particular tool for it- most have seemed artificial and this one relies, as you suggest, a quid pro quo implication. 
I don’t share for that personally.

Thanks, @spinsucks:twitter  I did mean that neither Gini or I are compensated, but rather, Triberr users who really like Triberr.

I totally get arguments from both sides of the fence here….If you are looking to grow your audience (true reach) triberr is a great tool. Be careful selecting the tribe you join and maybe wise to choose to select your retweets instead of auto tweet. It is a tool people… to grow reach….. if you want to grow your followers organically and not interested in growing true reach quickly, dont use triberr. 

Is there any difference between retweeting a blog that flows down the stream? Maybe there is…. especially if the triberr member who promotes your blog has a lot of followers…. once again, it is just a tool… time will tell if it has staying power….

Excellent points. What is more troubling is how the “big” people of social media are steering the entire industry and medium in this direction as the small and medium fish imitatively band together to be like them, combining their supposed follower strengths in order to in lump sum be a “reach multiplier” force. It completely distorts the value of social media itself, in the long run, instead turning it into a SMM pro marketing machine.

My biggest problems with Triberr – as I considered the invitation to join from people I respect – is how it pollutes my own stream. My thoughts on this are here: http://bit.ly/j9jZq0 where co-founder Dino was so kind to reply. Recommending a blog or other reading material is one of the more content rich nodes in Twitter. To robotically and asocially do so is a virtual equivalent to auto-DMing new followers. If you are about engagement you just don’t do it.

Quality is only truly curated by the sharer if that sharer reads every single post they share from their tribe. There’s no way around that fact. It doesn’t matter if a tribe member posts quality material 95% of the time. If you don’t read every post, you still run the risk of posting 5% crap. And  if people share crap because they can’t be bothered to know what they’re putting their name behind they deserve to be unfollowed, period. Maybe some folks do read everything first. But that would largely defeat the purpose of them using Triberr in the first place.

I’m not sure how anyone can seriously say there’s no difference. That doesn’t even make sense. 

Case 1: You write the content or offer it on your own blog. You know what you’re giving your subscribers, and you can put your name behind it confidently. That’s what your own blog feed or Twitter feed essentially is.

Case 2: You don’t necessarily read everything. You pass it along because of who wrote it instead. You’d have to be a fool to put your name behind anything blindly. And that’s largely what happens with things like Triberr, a service that built its reputation on being a virtual circle jerk. 

When people use the “they can always unsubscribe” response to defend this kind of thing, that speaks for itself. It says you care more about your own traffic than respecting your followers enough to know what you’re giving them. They do NOT subscribe to your Twitter feed to have random material thrown at them because you like so-and-so or somebody is willing to promote your content if you’re in their little group. They sign up to hear what you have to say, to connect with you, to get trusted recommendations — things that come from your personal injection and not from automated sharing of material you haven’t always read yourself. 

If it’s so wonderful, there’s no good reason you can’t have a separate feed of recommended reading instead of inserting things from your tribe into your more personal networking. That’s the only way followers get real choice. Otherwise they’re stuck with it if they want the more personal contributions. And that’s not a fair choice to leave them with — “if you want to connect with me, you’d better be willing to put up with my link spam.” At least with a separate account for the feed every tweet’s connection is easily disclosed, people don’t have to cease networking to eliminate your noise, and you don’t disrespect your existing connections by abusing those relationships to promote others. It’s not as though compromises like this don’t exist. I’m just surprised more people in PR (where relationships supposedly matter) aren’t taking advantage of them.

Danny in this case it IS the tool that people have problems with, because it is automating what many people view as a SOCIAL function.  Some people are going to look at Triberr and say ‘Hey, that’s convenient!’, and others are going to look at it and say ‘Hey, that’s not what social media should be about!’

That’s just the way it is.  I don’t like the idea behind Triberr.  I have dear friends that love it.  Life moves on.

I agree with your thoughts, Connie.  And here’s another issue, let’s say you belong to a tribe of 25.  You RT all posts written by these 25 people.  I know I don’t have time to daily read 25 blogs, and I bet you don’t either.  What happens when you are at an event and Jim comes up to you and says ‘Man I loved Gini’s post yesterday on Plus that you RTed.  Thanks for sharing!’  And you have no clue what Jim is talking about, because you RTed that post as part of Triberr, and didn’t read it.  

And yes, I am sure Danny would again argue that this is a limitation of the tool, not the person, but it’s a big reason why the tool doesn’t appeal to a lot of people.  But if Jim is RTing all my posts, guess what?  I will feel obligated to RT his if we are in the same Tribe.  

As others have said, it has the ‘Ick’ factor for me.  If others love it and think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, then knock yourselves out.  Triberr will no doubt go along merrily without my approval, and I can do the same  

But surely the same can be said of anyone like you on the opposite side of the coin, Mack, as far as stubbornness goes? You and others don’t like it; others do. Like you say, no-one is impacted by it, because you have the choice whether to read these tweets or not.

I think we’re saying the same thing, just on opposite sides of the fence. 

Why I like it is simple – it allows me to share content while I’m busy working, or spending time with my family. Others like to appear busy by being online all the time; I prefer to actually *be* busy but still offer content to those that wish it.

I actually vet every blog post. It takes a little time, but I know that anything that comes out of my Twitter account I’ve, at the very least, scanned and know it’s going to be valuable to some in my network. Triberr allows people to automate the system and I love it because it saves me the step of having to schedule it in SocialOomph (which I’ve used for nearly four years now). There are four or five bloggers whose posts I don’t vet, but I do read them every day, regardless of them being in my tribe. If you were in one of my tribes, you would be one of those bloggers. I know everything you write is valuable so I’m comfortable letting the tweet go out before I’ve had a chance to read and comment.

Gini, that makes sense. I know that Kellye doesn’t like the automation factor (I use Hootsuite to schedule my tweets and wall posts), but I can see the benefit. I made a fuss over ghostblogging years back and even with that I am now beginning to understand why companies do it. 

I think what we are all challenged with is time…and the lack of it. 

Hmmm, maybe I should check out Triberr and get in your tribe! (Shhh, don’t tell Kellye.)

Beth- I had no idea you were so easily swayed! I’m sure the Triberr invites are on their way to your inbox as we speak… Sad.

We love sarcasm at Solo PR Pro. To anyone who doesn’t know us: Beth and I are besties — and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that she’s not easily swayed!

During my brief time as part of a tribe, it was never expressed that we wouldn’t retreet each other’s posts.  Therefore, we all entered it with the understanding that we’d all amplify each other, and it was only after I kept noticing that fewer and fewer of my posts were being retweeted did I realize that I was the only one who wasn’t being selective about what did and didn’t get tweeted.

Though this may have since changed, I also learned that you could only have a single post magnified per day.  If you did three good posts, it would pick one of them to broadcast.  And you didn’t get to choose which it was.

It came down to three choices:
1. Manually vet every incoming tweet of someone else’s stuff when I’d have rather spent that time focused on my own content;
2. Automatically retweeting content from others who weren’t willing to do the same for me;
or 3. Leave the tribe.

Number 3 worked for me.

Honestly, I am so glad someone finally said this. I am so sick of Triberr and the amount of tweets that go out from there. Yes, I have been able to find a few blogs through triberr that I enjoy. And I think I get good traffic out of it, but from the stand point of Twitter usability alone? It’s awful. I hate seeing a stream of tweets with links. It’s annoying and 90 percent of the ones I see I don’t care enough about to click on. Same goes with the posts on triberr. I AM more likely, just as you said, to click the link of a post written by someone I am following. When I see the “via” of triberr, I ignore it most of the time. I don’t have the small community on triberr of people I read the blogs of. Most people I am grouped with on triberr are not blogs I follow. If I had people in my group that I read the blogs of I would love triberr! But that isn’t the case.