Tag Archives: Social Media

Why Dave Winer won’t point to Facebook posts

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He has two other reasons with which I agree, but this is my favorite:

“It’s supporting their downgrading and killing the web. Your post sucks because it doesn’t contain links, styling, and you can’t enclose a podcast if you want. The more people post there, the more the web dies. I’m sorry no matter how good your idea is, fuck you I won’t help you and Facebook kill the open web.”

I’ll have a blog till the day I die or I’m too far gone to maintain it. God willing, I’ll have an AI to take over at that point.

Mastodon

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I’ve been hanging out in a new social media neighborhood for the last week or so. It’s called Mastodon and it’s sort of like Twitter that you made in your garage with a glue gun and some Gorilla tape. This article will explain it better than I can.

I created my Twitter account on February 21, 2007 (account #786,471). When I stopped using Twitter last November I was following 176 people and 118 were following me (but I never saw any evidence of that). In those ten years I tweeted 11,565 times. Twitter was where I got most of my news.

But in 2016, nearly every single tweet, from every single user I followed, was politics. A solid fucking year of politics. And while I haven’t been back to my account, I assume that has not changed and will not for the foreseeable future. So I moved on. No idea if I’ll ever go back.

This Mastodon thing is fun and interesting but I’m not sure I can explain why. Where there’s one Twitter, owned and operated by a big corporation… there a thousand (?) Mastodon ‘instances.’ Maybe like 1,000 Twitters that can talk to each other?

I liked Twitter’s 140 character limit but Mastodon’s 500 character posts are growing on me. I’ve always leaned more toward writing something than throwing up one of the annoying goddamned animated GIFs (you an do that on Mastodon, too). There’s a bit of a Wild West feel for now but I suppose that will change.

I’m meeting new people and that’s a breath of fresh air. I’m reading the businesses don’t like it and that is a BIG plus for me. I do not like being “monetized.”

Mastodon is just confusing enough to keep your grandmother from showing up, another plus.

The Passion of St. Dilblert

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I stopped keeping up with Scott Adams when he went wall-to-wall Trump stuff, but Google still slips me a link to his blog from time to time. In a recent post he complains that Twitter “throttles back my free speech when it doesn’t fit their political views.” He insists this only happens with “Trump-related content.”

Sounds a little paranoid to me but who the fuck knows anymore. And then there’s this near the end of the post:

“I’m trying to get my channel on YouTube running smoothly for after Twitter’s collapse. I’m still having massive and unpredictable hardware/software issues. You’ll see my A/B testing over at this link. Keep it handy in case I suddenly disappear from Twitter.”

I find this interesting from a social media perspective. It sounds like he’ll switfh his social media efforts to YouTube if/when Twitter makes him “disappear.” I watched a few minutes of this “A/B testing” on YouTube although I’m mystified why one would post such a test. Does he expect people to watch long, crazy-head YouTube rants?

Watch a minute or two of this video and you’ll see this rich, semi-famous guy sitting in a dark room in his California mansion, switching back and forth between webcams.

Prototype usability testing

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So I get this invite to take part in usability testing of a new prototype (is that redundant?). It’s for a big company. One of the biggest. I can’t tell you much more because I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and they seemed pretty serious about it.

A young woman (early 20s?) ran the session (a video conference) and there were 4 or 5 others who I assume were observing but did not speak. The session lasted about half an hour.

She had me log in to a development site with (what I assume was) an early version of the new tool they’re working on. She asked me to play around with the tool and talk aloud as I did so. She would occasionally ask me a question. Near the end of the session she asked if I would use a tool like this, to which I immediately replied, “No” and explained why.

I don’t use Facebook so I’m only speculating here, but I had a strong sense they were trying to add FB-like features. “Like” buttons; the little “heart” icon; etc. I said, as gently as I could, it seemed they were trying to solve a problem that did not exist. This company is big enough they must have an army of developers working on stuff like this all the time. And that’s good, up to the point they adding features nobody wants or needs.

I don’t know when — if ever — I’ll be able to tell you more about this. Maybe if the thing ever goes public. For my effort they’re going to give me a $50 gift certificate, but the real value was forcing me to think about social media and how use it (or don’t use it).

Social. Media.

The ‘media’ part is pretty straight forward. We see news, photos, video, audio. The ‘social’ part seems to be about connecting with people (“engagement”). In my experience, that is happening at an increasingly superficial level. Thumbs up, thumbs down, heart, +1. I’ve started wondering, why bother? Yes, I’m retired and have lots of time to write a long-winded post or comment (TLDR!). But, really, what does a ‘thumbs up’ or +1 add?

It must be enough, though, because here I am. If I spot the new prototype in the wild, I’ll let you know.

Quit social media?

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“My second objection concerns the idea that social media is harmless. Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom.”

Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend on It. (New York Times)