So, here I am, day two (or maybe three) of Life in TypePad. As I'd mentioned earlier, the impetus for my being here in particular is this contest:

http://www.brickfish.com/GoToPage.aspx?qsi=54643710

.. which a family member entered in to, and asked my help with. (Your view/vote welcome!). I responded by establishing additional business sites at a number of locations, re-enlivening one site that had initially overwhelmed me, using hootsuite much more, etc..

All for the short-term outcomes around the contest, but also for long-term outcomes for my accounting-services etc.. business. I support small business/nonprofits, and I figure: since social media is out there, and it's important, the more I immerse myself in it, the more conversant I'll be and the better support I'll be able to provide. At this point, my clients don't experience either actual revenue or actual expenses related to social media, but that's probably going to change, sooner than later.

And it's all fascinating and fun - just needed that push to leap in!

So, to compare a little bit: I like the links this site establishes to my other sites (which Blogger also has, WordPress doesn't seem to - or perhaps I've not consumed that aspect of it yet), and of course Tumblr doesn't. Also Facebook doesn't - I actually started off with a Facebook business page, and moving away from that is one of my big-big goals. So now I'm testing the alternatives..

I like the visual look of my blog well enough, not for the long-term necessarily, but for now it's fine.

I really like all the site info - clear and understandable, and accessible. What they give me on Facebook (despite my efforts) makes no sense to me, and is inconsistently available and generally opaque. What I see so far on Hootsuite is pretty clear, but have to go through a few clicks to get there - totally reasonable and all. But here, just that much closer.

I don't really like the lack of a dashboard function - that I can find anyway. Right now all I use is the 'find people to follow' link w/n the site-getting started process. Also, folks I follow, their posts show up on my dashboard.. but that's not very much activity.

The conversation function doesn't really do much for me - can't seem to click on the sites of those participating, so no context or networking possible. And the feature of having each entry start off as a conversation item is not very applicable to my content.

Also I'm not crazy about the close integration with Facebook. And the constant opening of new windows, but maybe there's a setting I can adjust on that.

So initially, this site doesn't seem like a long-term intensive prospect, but we'll see.. Could have a more complete content tier of a few sites, and then other sites that have less complete content, but still a presence..

Things to explore more here: the relationship with Technorati.. hmm...

Your comments/feedback always welcome!