The New Big » blogging

Twits

stumax — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:00:19 +0000

Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel had a very interesting discussion earlier on whether “social media” is the proper term for the whole big kettle containing blogging, podcasting, etc.

I sure wish I could point you to it so that you could read it yourself. Unfortunately, their discussion was on Twitter, and unless you were subscribed to both fellows’ Twitter streams, you might have missed it.

Fortunately, I was subscribed to both Robert and Steve, so I could follow the conversation. But what if I was only subscribed to Robert? Here’s what I might have read:

@steverubel: most online media is now two-way at least in part. Agreed. about 6 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to steverubel
@steverubel: a better example would be my Kyte.tv channel where you can leave your own video as part of my channel. about 6 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to steverubel
PodTech is different from TV because you can leave comments and interact with the media. about 6 hours ago from twitterrific
@steverubel: so you think online media should just be shortened to “media?” I’m not so sure. I like “social” because it still connotes 2 way about 6 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to steverubel
@steverubel: he’s a fake blogger who got caught. about 6 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to steverubel
@steverubel: what would you suggest using instead of “social media?” about 6 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to steverubel

Oh, did I mention you need to read it bottom-to-top?

Look, here’s what I suggest you do so that it makes sense: open up Scoble’s Twitter feed, open a new tab in your browser, and then open up Rubel’s Twitter feed. Start with about the 6th Twit down for Rubel, about the 7th Twit down on the second page for Scoble, and switch tabs until you’ve read their back-and-forth.

Of course, that assumes that you read this pretty soon after I post it. If it’s a few days later, or a few months later, I’m not sure what to tell you. Just keep scrolling through the Twitter pages until you find something that seems like it matches up, maybe?

Scoble also had a nice rant earlier. I can’t point you to it. Let me go copy and paste it for you. Okay, first I go to Scoble’s Twitter feed, let’s see… starts on the 4th page in. So here’s the first part…

arikb: yeah, email still has SOME value. But going down all the time. I far prefer people not send me private notes. Scalable communication. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific
PR people are the worst in the email regard. Speaker planners are close. I don’t answer a lot of my email anymore. If I did, I’d never do. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific
It’s amazing that in this age of Twitter that people still send email. I hate email. I hate direct Tweets. I hate Facebook messages. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific

The bulk of the rant from the 3rd page…

@hardaway: Facebook messages are still private. I answer my public “wall” posts first. Public first, private second. That way I get scale. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to hardaway
@jaxn: very few people call me on my phone. I guess that hasn’t yet turned into a problem. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to jaxn
@ChrisDoelle: 10 tweets comes because you all keep talking back to me. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to ChrisDoelle
@webword: Mike Arrington is a hard guy to get ahold of, especially when he’s digging through 100 new hot companies. But he watches Twitter. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to webword
@dharrels called me a “tool.” OK wiseguy. You want to answer my email? I didn’t think so. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to dharrels
@maceo87: you miss the point. Email is not as good a communication style as the others. Email sucks BECAUSE it is not in public. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to maceo87
@tildesley: not really. I can consume and answer Twitters much easier than email. And if I don’t catch them you can help answer too!! Scale! about 12 hours ago from web in reply to tildesley
@pinkfu is complaining that I mashed a blog post into several Twitters. Heheh. Guilty as charged. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to pinkfu
@Tildesley: I don’t want to converse with most of the world. There’s no way I can do that. So, the subset on Twitter sounds just fine! about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to tildesley
@loiclemeur: Twitter has a page called “replies.” I use it often. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to loiclemeur
Basically this is my gesture to the world: I am not answering my email and I’m not going to start. I’m overloaded. Tweet me. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific
@nikf: if I answer a question in public space it is answered for everyone. I bias toward public conversation first. That’s why email sucks. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to nikf
@tildesley: the best way to get ahold of me? Blogg comments. Twitter. Pownce. Kyte. Facebook. Phone (my number is always public). about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to tildesley
@jeffledoux: Twitter IS better than IM already. Far better. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to jeffledoux
If I want to get a hold of Mike Arrington, for instance, i know that writing a Tweet about him will get his attention far faster than email. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific
@dweezel: that’s the whole point. Most of my email does NOT need to be private. It’s far better to do most communication out in public. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to dweezel
Or people asking me to blog. Very low quality stuff. If PR people were forced to do their work in public their entire method would change. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific
@jasonw22: yeah. I’d never get anything done if I answered my email. Most of it is people asking me to speak. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to jasonw22
If something really needs to be private than email is great. But most of my email doesn’t need to be private. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific
I always answer things in public space first. Why? Because those communications scale. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific

...and it finally wraps up on the 2nd page:

OK, start quiet mode. I’m not ignoring anyone, just gonna quiet down cause I know when I through 20 tweets I piss people off. about 12 hours ago from twitterrific

@seekground: but the advantage of public messages is even if I ignore you others can answer your questions. A lot of my email is tech suppor about 12 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to seekground

Translation to the past 20 tweets: I need an assistant to answer my email. Outsource what you hate. I hate email. about 12 hours ago from web

There. Is that readable? You did read each bit bottom to top this time, right?

So, of course the point of all of this is that the value of this kind of conversation is negative, as far as I’m concerned. It isn’t findable, it isn’t shareable, and if you’re not following a Twitter stream all day, it isn’t coherent. It frustrates the heck out of me that I can’t easily capture cool stuff that people say in Twitter and share it with others. There’s a lot of value in Twitter, but as things stand today, its value isn’t as a publishing platform.

I know Robert’s point is about using Twitter as a public alternative to email, but even so, I don’t see how it’s a useful alternative if people need to keep asking the same questions over and over because there’s no way for them to find where it is you answered the question the first time.

I like Twitter. A lot. But it’s a walled garden. It is not a substitute for an open conversation. And it concerns me that smart people and leaders in the blogosphere are increasingly turning to Facebook and Twitter and other closed communication silos in order to express themselves.

More Big Things

Blog+Podcast:Seattle Real Estate Talk

stumax — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:42:12 +0000

Seattle Real Estate Talk is the home of Seattle’s first real estate-related podcast. We are developing an approachable, independent resource for home buyers and sellers, with featured listings, market analysis, and real estate news.

This project is currently on hiatus.

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blog:The Sufferable Ass

stumax — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:52:37 +0000

A blog on topics technical, political, and personal at The Sufferable Ass. I design and maintain this for a friend.

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All a-Twitter

stumax — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:18:40 +0000

So, I’ve been spending some time over the last couple of days trying to grok Twitter, the new hybrid messaging service that everyone’s been glomming onto lately. I first signed up a few weeks ago, but as I was only occasionally dipping into the public stream of Twitters, I didn’t really get what the big deal was. Today, though, I started adding more friends, and now I have a different perspective on the whole thing.

I have 15 friends right now, and they range from people I know fairly well, to casual acquaintances, to people whose blogs I follow, to complete strangers like presidential candidate John Edwards. And I guess I’m wondering… well, then, what’s the purpose of Twitter? What’s it for?

Here are a few things I could see being useful:

keeping up with friends
letting friends keep up with me
keeping up with thought leaders and other smart folk in a way that’s more efficient and immediate than blogging (Yeah, blogging! How archaic!)
engaging in a kind of microblogging
engaging in a kind of creepy celebrity stalking

In truth, I think I’m doing a little of each of the above right now.

There are all kinds of complex and profound choices to be made in this seemingly simple service. Do I send updates to everyone, or just my “friends?” Do I add just anyone as my friend, or do I maintain some sort of selectivity? If I add someone as a friend and they don’t friend me back, should I take that personally? Do I friend someone just because they befriended me? If I friend someone, should I also friend their spouse? And what kind of Twitters do I twit about? Is Twitter a status updater or a conversation channel? How much I is TMI?

Obviously, I’m still trying to sort out my feelings about Twitter. There are some very cool things about the service. I like sending out simple updates, and then dipping into the whirlpools of conversation that people are having. It’s like walking through a mall and hearing snippets of people’s lives.

I also like that I can have a faux-intimate connection to someone like John Edwards. It’s thrilling to see the most mundane updates. “Interviews, airplanes, and just arrived in Houston.” “In san antonio.” “In Seattle.” Hey, that’s where I live! “Changing this country.” Rock on, Senator. All this somehow makes Edwards more real to me; it brings his campaign down to a human level. (Plus, he added me as a friend! How cool is that!?)

Maybe, actually, that’s the coolest thing about Twitter: most of our lives are filled with mundane events. There’s something very comforting and very human about the tiny little updates — not instead of, but rather as a supplement to longer blog posts or podcasts.

On the other hand, I’m only following 15 people right now, so the flow of Twitters is very manageable. Some Twitterpatrons have hundreds of friends and followers. At that level, isn’t this just another channel of noise? I mean, I’ve got over 300 RSS feeds, Skype, IM, IRC, and far more email than I can handle. Do I really need another simultaneous stream of bits to join the firehose?

Wait, I can answer that: No, I don’t. And yet I just added an IM client to my Treo so that I can keep up anytime anywhere. [Sigh]

Oh, well. Heaven help me, but I do love watching the landscape change. I am continually fascinated by how the internet warps and weaves, by how we invent and re-invent ways to connect with each other. Will Twitter be a passing fad or a fundamental change in the way we communicate? Dunno, but I want to know it from the inside, instead of the sidelines. So friend me or follow me, if you like, and let me know what you think.

(By the way, there are some things about Twitter that aren’t very intuitive… at least not to me. Like the difference between friend and follower, and that you can be a follower but not a friend, or vice versa. I’ll be collecting links here to tips, tricks, and tools. Hope they’ll be useful to you, too.)

More Big Things

Who needs Photoshop?

stumax — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:00:45 +0000

From the Internet Time Blog, we learn about ImageChef, which allows you to create personalized text over a variety of image templates. Great for dressing up a blog post.

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The New Big update … Summer ’06

stumax — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 21:35:03 +0000

I don’t know about you, but for me this summer has flown by. Seems like I’ve been busier than all get-out, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what with. Between visiting friends, attending events, working, and just general life maintenance, it’s been a full and enjoyable few months.

I thought this might be a good time for little project update. Here’s what we’ve been up to at The New Big:

Seattle Mind Camp

Andru, Justin, and I met briefly last week to lay the groundwork for Seattle Mind Camp 3.0 in November. Watch the Mind Camp blog and mailing list for announcments about upcoming planning meetings. We don’t have a firm date yet, but we’re looking at the first two weekends in November.

Seattle Podcasting Network

SPN continues to roll along with monthly meetups. Blog posting has been light for the summer, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been entirely inactive. We kicked off the Passionate Podcasters Contest, offering a Rane MP 4 mixer to the most creative podcaster.

Travis and I spent some time at the Youth Media Institute last week, giving a group of budding audio and video producers a primer on podcasting. The Institute plans to make oral histories of residents in their White Center neighborhood available as podcasts, and we were thrilled to help give them a little insight into the philosophy and practice of podcasting.

The Sufferable Ass

I finally got around to updating the look of The Sufferable Ass, and I have to say I’m pretty happy with the result. Along with a new theme, I’ve taken a new approach to information management, by organizing content thematically on the front page, rather than chronologically. This gives the site more of a feel of a magazine or book, while still maintaining the ability for folks to subscribe to the freshest content through the RSS feed.

I’ve still got a few tweaks to do before everything’s running just right, but I really think that this kind of approach is the way to go for blogs that have a lot of good content but are infrequently updated. It allows a blog to feature the best or most relevant content to new readers. One thing I’d like to figure out now is how to allow subscribers to pick up my RSS feed from any point in my history… sort of like being able to watch a TV series from the beginning if you’ve missed a few episodes, rather than being forced to pick things up midway through the season.

...and the rest…

The Louverture Project continues to grow beyond my wildest expectations, thanks mostly to the work of “Doe.” I plan to move the wiki up a level in the directory structure, to replace the blog that has gone without updates for many months.

Read the Founders has suffered from a lack of attention. I’m going to try another push for Constitution Day in September.

We’ve been in talks with another agent to collaborate on Seattle Real Estate Talk.

Finally, I found a very interesting site called Dapper which may let me do exactly what I want with Warming Signs. Stay tuned…