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Threaded conversations and community

Byrichard

From the 1970s to 2007 we had threaded conversations through bulletin boards, forums, groups and other centralising discussion points. For a brief window of about two years conversations became so captivating that people wanted to meet in person as strong friendships were established. By 2009-2010 the threaded and personal conversations between web users was hijacked by “social media” marketers and so the speed of conversation and quality of interactions collapsed. In it’s place hashtags would replace user engagement with quick metrics.

The golden age of conversation has been replaced by the dark ages of indifference. Every day that we spend online we see how disengaged people have become. Look at twitter. Do you still see user to user conversations. Look at Facebook. Do you still see engaging content and passionate conversations? I see a waste of time. The conversations which were taking place have been replaced by dumbed down headlines and sensationalist content.

For several years we have heard about how corporations should not have access to our data because of what they will do with it. From where I am surfing the web and interacting with the online community I see a more serious problem. I see that as the chance of individual to individual conversations has decreased so the quality of shared articles, videos and other content has been dumbed down. This is evident on Facebook and Twitter. These networks are becoming ghost towns. They have millions of user profiles that are slowly going dormant.

That social media networks are going dormant is excellent. Instead of wasting time with Ello, Diaspora and other solutions I believe that going back to the blogging habit will benefit everyone. It is decentralised, it is interest based and it is long form. Through Worpdress.org tools, through Disqus and other solutions so our ability to connect and communicate is improved. It forces us to be positive and to be accountable. Everything that you share can contribute to your reputation and help share your passions. We should not be hidden behind silos and we should not be anonymous. We need to break the twitter and Facebook duopoly.

New unfollow out

Byrichard

unfollowTwitter is a dynamic and social conversation tool which ignores borders, timezones and continents. The more time you give to the website the more you get out of it. As more and more people join the site so following passive people makes less and less sense.

Yesterday I downloaded justunfollow out of curiosity and today they come out with updated iOS and Android apps.

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The small matter of Cairo

Byrichard

What makes the situation in Cairo so interesting is the number of media outlets that you can use as sources. From 24 hour news channels like France 24, Al Jazeera, BBC World and others to individual people with mobile phones. For France 24 you have three languages to chose from, with Al Jazeera to you have three languages to chose from. With Sky News you have the choice between Standard definition and High definition.

You have live cameras looking into the square. There is no lag time between the acquisition and distribution of images. There is the challenge of aquiring images from the ground though. Journalists have been attacked, as reported on twitter, and through interviews once they arrive in their home countries.

Tweets have told us of arrests of certain individuals, of attacks on certain media offices etc. It means that whilst those within the country may not have access to this information we on the outside see it.

One of the aspects that is so interesting is the way in which people have been able to organise themselves. Facebook, twitter and other social websites have been important, like Bambuser and flickr. Mainstream as well.

I am looking forward to the literature that will come out from this event, especially if it successful. Imagine comparing a situation like that of Tomas in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” to this situation, especially if the end result is greater freedom.

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Ten reasons to give up on twitter

Byrichard

Once again I have deleted my twitter account. Here are ten reasons to give up on twitter.

  1. Europe is neutral about the site. If you want friendships with people an ocean away join.

  2. Whenever you want to post some technical problem means you have to post five times

  3. If you have a real job, not freelancing, then you can’t afford to check updates all the time.

  4. Lack of user engagement, when less than a tenth of your replies are responded to you know there’s no point staying up to date with those people.

  5. Virtual community, unlike with facebook and other social networks the people you interact with here are strangers.

  6. Spam, as more and more marketers come to the site so the more you use certain words the more unsolicited messages you get.

  7. Veteran community: Aside from Facebook all websites are at their community most interesting when the users are new and passionate about the service. That has faded with twitter.

  8. 140 characters; Although it was great three years ago mobile phones are now far more capable mobile devices. Limiting yourself to 140 characters is no longer an interesting option.

  9. Server downtime. For three years they have been struggling with making the platform stable and for three years they have been failing. If you have to try five times to post 140 characters then something is wrong.

  10. User indifference. They are indifferent about their user base. Just take a look at the FAQ and try to offer them feedback and you will first have to go through an FAQ before being able to explain your views.

Having a full time job means that my free time is more precious than before. As a result I’d rather be out in the real world doing real things. It’s also about how much time you need to invest into such a service before getting anything of any value out of it. As a result a year after I first left twitter I have left again. This time I think it will be for good. I don’t like the way the company is run and I don’t like the way the users are using the site. Goodbye twitter. On to better things.

Happy and slightly nervous – as would be expected.

Byrichard

Nouvo is a show I have enjoyed watching many times, aired on Swiss television and in podcast form until recently. They are changing format and appearing on the website and news programs from now on. What makes this particularly interesting is that they left a comment on this blog, asking to interview the person behind Warzabidul, my twitter name for the past two years.

I accepted and after two half hour phone calls we spent half a day. I was filmed at home tweeting at breakfast, walking through the countryside and in the old town of Geneva. Two other people were interviewed about twitter as well, to provide some balance.

That news item will be aired on Sunday 19th of April on the 1930 Téléjournal, as well as on the Nouvo site. They also have a new twitter account so once you’ve watched the two accounts make sure to create an account and let them know you’ve watched the program. Let’s show that Switzerland too uses the social media.

As an afterthought you should see the seesmic logo on my laptop, maybe seesmic desktop, nambu, dabr, twitterific and maybe one or two other applications.

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It’s a question of Gravity – Twitter on S60

Byrichard

Gravity is a twitter client for the s60 and I recently installed it on my N95 and so far I’m very happy with it. With an intuitive interface it makes being logged in to two twitter accounts and one identica account very easy. What is especially nice is that you select which account you want to look at and by scrolling left and right you see the friend’s timeline, the replies, your tweets, your DM and finally searches if you want. That’s automatic and for every account.

It’s far better than the other twitter clients for s60 that I’ve tried so for the moment that is one twitter client I would recommend you use.

I know what I’m talking about. I tweet from anywhere without it slowing down my social life.

Also if you pay for this app after the ten day trial period you’re helping demonstrate that it’s not just the iphone which has people willing to pay for the applications

The twitter schedule – updated

Byrichard

For two years I’ve been using twitter and during that time I have spent far too much time on the site. As a result I built many friendships. Always paying attention to twitter, even when mobile was a great way of using twitter in the past, but due to people having less time every day to tweet I am adopting a new twitter usage model.

I am now scheduling when I will be active on twitter. If you want to find me and chat on twitter then there are three time slots during the day when I will be monitoring the site.

These times are:

0930-1000

1030-1040 and

1930-2000 Central European time (CET).

Now to wait and see whether this promotes more conversation.

My twitter account will not come back to life until they allow for the restoring of accounts.

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Recommending my twitter friends with MrTweet

Byrichard

Whilst I listened to MrTweet speaking on the Net@Nite podcast from several month ago I found it interesting that he spoke of the re-tweet as giving credit to those you follow who share some interesting links.

If you spend a lot of time on twitter though after seeing the same retweet too many times you may not follow them anymore. What I propose is to use MrTweet’s recommendation instead. The process is simple. Go to a profile page and you can see two things. You can see who has recommended you (me) or who you have recommended.

If you’re a twitter Veteran like those I follow and I then you don’t need MrTweet but if you like my blogging and tweet style then by seeing who I recommend you can find more relevant people to your twitter stream. As a result you will be following a group of friends rather than random strangers. As a result that sense of community will remain strong.