Nicole Manktelow

I have to write a feature for Natski’s new mag on social networks and the digerati. I’ll be faking tech-elite status all the way and that’s part of the allure (writers and actors are the same people at heart).

However, I am somewhat of a procrastinator about social networking. Mainly because I know I already have too many things on my plate at any one time to really spend much time having fun on the net with other people.

Ahh the days of IRC and long hours spent absorbed in chatrooms with strangers talking absolute rubbish (anyone remember #JJJ ? Nevermind).

Alas, these days I just don’t get to have that much fun online. It takes a bit of prodding to try new services because I know that I’ll start something that I might not finish. Might not? Hah.

This blog is a case in point. It has not been updated in at least six months. The shame of the short-attention span.

That’s not to say I don’t love writing and generally waffling on. Of course I do. It’s just a turn-off when it starts to feel like homework - overdue homework. Ugh. Add it to the bottom of the to-do list.

Worse, there’s something oddly uncomfortable in writing about myself – which seems to be what always happens, since I’m usually writing a great long explanation for why I have not posted in a while. It’s overdue homework with built-in guilt. Pathetic really.

But, I’m getting to the point now. I promise!

The feature I am researching has given me an excuse to indulge. I’m getting facebook account, signed up for orkut, put in a request for Pownce (anyone want to invite me?) and am considering putting something – anything – on my completely empty myspace page, which I had forgotten I even had (the result of a roadtest of blogging systems written years ago). Hmm. It’s on the to-do list now too.

Oh yes. It’s a wild, action-packed weekend of signing-up, clicking here and typing in the little obscured security letters that are meant to prove I am human and not a bot.

And not just human, but a validated, linkedin, well-connected example. Do I feel part of the great social networking universe yet? Am I feeling endorsed by the number of online friends I have. Hmmmm. Maybe I should get some first?

Details, details. That can go on the to-do list as well, after the next column, the feature story, the score for the short film, the doco, the doco community website, the script for the podcast, the e-newsletter service I want to test and my ambition to one-day sing with a big band.

Considering the workload, the many and various stories, short films, projects and pranks, there’s a lot on the damn to-do list. But that’s the way I like it. Which is why, of all the social networking services I’ve been trying out, 43 Things seems like the one that I might actually use when the feature is filed. My to-do list has at least 43 things on it.