Twitter

“The pathology of social media is all about loneliness” Social media professionals take the weekend off. Twitter users use hashtags so that their content can be found without being followed. Everything is turned towards discoverability rather than commitment and conversation. Social media practitioners know that people aren’t listening attentively so they repeat and repeat in the hope of a click or two. Hashtags are just a way of pretending that a conversation has had an audience. It doesn’t measure the number of comments and responses. It doesn’t measure how long threads lasted before they stopped. There was a time when people like me would read every tweet from people we followed and we would converse daily. It created a lot of friendships and led to a lot of face to face meetings. In today’s social media landscape I do see loneliness rather than socialising. I see on twitter that people are actively posting only once or twice a day. On Facebook I have seen such a serious decline in participation that there is little reason to stick around. My generation were active in social media for a short amount of time and now they have retreated to “normal” life. Whilst some people have hundreds of likes on their instagram images I have half a dozen to a dozen. Almost every like on Instagram is a person that I have conversed with online for years. There is a chance that I can tell you how long we’ve been chatting online, whether we’ve met in person and at what event and which networks we have shared. Twitter friends were trusted enough to become facebook friends. Facebook and twitter friends followed on instagram etc. Facebook was a very active and social place when we were all at university and having the same social life. Twitter was a very social network when I was looking for work and meeting the London Social Media crowd, the French social media crowd and the Swiss social media individuals. Ingress has presented me with a large group of Swiss people whom I have met many times recently as an active player of Ingress. Many of them are around my age.  We use Google hangouts to talk and plan missions and are in constant communication. Glocals was good for finding people to explore new activities and locations with but the connection lasted only as long as the activities. There was little to no follow up socialising online. The Glocals Scuba diving group is the one I got along with best and the group with which I did the most activities. It’s a shame that this was an activity for people a decade older than me. When I think of the social journey both online and offline I see that loneliness is not the pathology of social media. I joined Twitter because I love to try new things. Facebook was a network of university friends whom I saw every day. Seesmic was a network of people whom I developed strong friendships with that last to this day and Glocals was probably the only network I joined out of solitude and a need to do things on weekends. I like the irony that the network I joined to avoid solitude is the one that resulted in the deepest feeling of it. Eventually every social network becomes lonely but we would say the same about the city from which our friends have gone, of the bars and more. Geneva is referred to as an airport hub. People come to the city for a year or two and then leave. As a result the refreshing of friendships is very high and it takes a certain personality to cope. Modern transportation; planes, cars, and trains create a pathology of loneliness and social media are part of the solution for as long as the social networks are frequented.

Hello Twitter-ers! As you may already know, Obvious is the parent company of Twitter and it’s never a dull day around here. Today our little building is abuzz with activity surrounding an announcement that Odeo (another Obvious product) is ready for a new home. We’re entertaining offers from potential buyers because Odeo deserves the same love and attention we’ve been heaping on Twitter these days. Have you been by lately? http://twitter.com More about Odeo: http://tinyurl.com/2yoy84 Defamer Brings The Oscars to Twitter Popular Hollywood gossip blog Defamer.com is going to the Oscars this Sunday and they’re bringing Twitter! Sorta. Follow Defamer on Twitter and you’ll get live from-the-scene updates. Who won what? What’s happening in the seats? What are the stars doing? Get the updates on your phone while you watch on TV to make things more interesting or if you can’t watch, just get the updates. Text FOLLOW DEFAMER to 40404 or, Visit http://twitter.com/defamer Oscars: http://oscar.com If you haven’t set up your phone to work with Twitter yet, now is a good time! You can do that here: http://twitter.com/devices. The Oscars are broadcast live February 25 at 5pt/8et on ABC. Speaking of coveted awards, you can still vote for Twitter and help us win the SXSW People’s Choice awards. We will be so psyched if we win. Vote Twitter! https://secure.sxsw.com/peoples_choice/ SXSW Update There’s going to be lots of folks from three industries represented at the SXSW Conference in Austin next month. We’ve heard from people in the Interactive, Music, and Film industries who are excited to get on Twitter during the week-long event. We’ll have big screens set up in the hallways and we’re setting up a special, easy way for folks to get their updates on the screens. Once we set that up, we’ll tell you more. Even if you can’t make it to SXSW, you’ll still be able to catch all the buzz. Office Full of Great Folks Obvious employs less than ten people but the building is filling up fast since we’ve opened our doors to some other really cool companies working on interesting projects. Two of the projects are still top secret, there’s a couple Y Combinator startups sharing space with us, and the other folks are 30boxes.com, Boso.com, and the illustrious Niall Kennedy. (Hi Niall!) When the secret projects launch, we’ll tell you about them–they’re cool! http://30boxes.com http://boso.com http://www.niallkennedy.com/ http://ycombinator.com/ Okay, back to work. Lots to do this week! Happy Twitter-ing, Biz Stone and the Twitter Team http://twitter.com/biz

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.

Twitter 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. iOS App |Android App

There is an easy to solve problem that Twitter has yet to correct. Spammers create an account and send @username hyperlink. This type of spam would be tremendously easy to eliminate yet twitter does nothing of the sort. A simple filter would be enough to prevent such posts from taking place.

After two years of online interactions I finally met certain Geneva twitter users. The tweetup took place at the Bristol Hotel in Geneva. There was a good group of people and they were what you would exepect from a tweetup. It was organised by bristolgva and here is some of the related twitter conversation linked to the event.

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.

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.

Glocals is a local website to find out what events are going on where for the international community in Geneva. It regroups events in a number of cities making easier to meet like minded people. The reason for which I mention this social network is the low input high yield results from the site. In brief you see an event, you turn up, you meet some strangers and through conversation they become acquaintances. This is contrary to the way I have approached social interactions on the web. I have spent years now building trust, building relations with people in a virtual environment. As a result of this it requires constant attention, constant interest. I am thinking of twitter when speaking about this topic. 70,000 tweets have given me very little return on the time I have invested. In effect twitter is not only a waste of time but just the wrong social network for Switzerland. There are a wealth of people to be met through the Glocals site, some work in the UN system, others for global companies and yet more for other settings. People who have been in Geneva for just a few hours or days meet up with people who have been here for years. There’s also the gender balance. Going to many twitter events you’re surrounded by men, by workaholics, by self proclaimed entrepreneurs. They are focused on work, and profit rather than friendship. In contrast Glocals is a nice mix of men and woman, physically active people who go canyoning, sailing, running and more. It’s a well travelled international crowd. The most interesting aspet of my experiences over the past two weeks is that just because a site is talked about extensively does not mean that this is the site you should give most of your time to. There is a good chance that there is a tiny site with only a few thousand users that will reward you by turning up to events. No need for all that virtual conversing. Turn up, chat face to face and you will have gained new opportunities. The result is a more satisfied end of weekend. I will continue particpating in these face to face meetups and twitter will be a secondary network.

Mark Douglass - Apr 2, 2009

I second that motion!

:-), I was thinking of translating and subtitling in English, but that would require me listening to myself.