Too many ripples in the pond?

In a previous post I pointed out David Armano's observations about Social Media Fragmentation which David pictured in the graphic shown below.

Thoughts Illustrated: Multiplicity Anyone? Influence Ripples -Social Media Fragmentation


This morning, another "friendly" ripple appeared on my screen suggesting that I view the YouTube Battle at Kruger, an amateur video of a combat between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo and some really honking crocodiles along a muddy stream bank in Africa. The guy who sent me the link is a friend from the "real world" who intrigued me enough with some trick questions that he included in his email that I just had to view the video.

The video, which I have embedded below, has now been the subject of over 2.5 million hours of viewing time by 17 million viewers, and consumed just as many hours of network bandwidth on YouTube.

I did watch it, out of deference to my friend's recommendation, but it got me to thinking about my ROA( Return on Attention)

In these days where attention is a scarce resource, and our social network "friends" send continuous ripples like this 9 minute video our way, how do we manage to gain some control over the cacophony of the online world and yet maintain our social network relationships. How can we "tune" our receivers to filter out important signals from the overwhelming noise of the Web?

With apologies for dropping another pebble in the pond, the Battle at Kruger is on your screen below: