Twitter fixes their timeline

YES!!!!!! The Verge:

Twitter has made a surprise change to how it shows tweets to its users, following a viral thread earlier today that discussed ways to reverse the platform’s algorithmic timeline. Now, when you uncheck the settings box reading “Show the best tweets first,” Twitter will completely revert your timeline to a non-algorithmic, reverse-chronological order, which is how Twitter was originally designed and operated for years until the company introduced a default algorithmic model in early 2016.

I saw this tweet last night and immediately turned this on. Now with this new setting I don’t need it. Please keep this Twitter. Please!

September 18, 2018

Manton Reece on smaller social networks

Manton Reece:

Many people are looking for “the next Twitter”, but it’s not enough to replace Twitter with a new platform and new leadership. Some problems are inevitable when power is concentrated in only 2-3 huge social networks — ad-based businesses at odds with user needs and an overwhelming curation challenge. This might be Mastodon’s greatest contribution: getting people used to the idea of many smaller, interoperable communities.

I agree with this far more today than I have in the past. I too was looking for the next Twitter. But now I’m glad there won’t likely be a replacement but that we will divide our time and interests across many communities. It will likely keep them all more civil and better.

September 17, 2018

Leo Laporte leaves Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook

Leo Laporte:

Yesterday I deactivated my Twitter account and kicked Tumblr to the curb. A couple of weeks ago I did the same with Instagram. A month or so before that I killed Facebook. And I survived. No, thrived!

I had deleted my Twitter account in the past and lived. And while I haven’t deleted my account again I am on Twitter far less than ever. I spend much more time in my RSS reader (like in 2003 era), dabble on Micro.blog, and now on Mastodon a bit. It feels so much better even if decentralized.

August 29, 2018

Colin Walker takes a break (so I will too)

Colin Walker:

I’m not going to be blogging much – maybe the occasional post but nothing regular. I’m going to remove my feed from micro.blog for the time being so that I’m not drawn into conversations there that might result from any posts – if any conversations occur they will have to happen locally, for now.

That isn’t a reflection on Manton and the micro.blog service, I still think he is doing a wonderful job and it keeps going from strength to strength, it’s just not somewhere I need to be at the moment and something I need to do for me.

I’ve recently thought about doing something similar. Lately publishing to Facebook, Instagram, and my blog have felt like a bit of a chore. As such, I’m actually behind on my blogging. Which starts to create this odd pressure (that is only self-induced). I’ve taken many breaks in the past. They feel great and usually result in coming back with fresh perspectives.

So I’m going to join my friend-from-across-the-ocean Colin and hop off of this blog, all social media, YouTube and my RSS reader for all of August.

Comments are closed. See you in September.

July 30, 2018

What I would write about Vero

Colin Walker wrote his hot take on Vero and it is exactly what I would have written (only his post is far more eloquent than mine would have been). Go read the entire post but here are a few highlights.

As soon as I saw what Vero was all about – the idea it “makes sharing online more like real life” using selective audiences I was immediately taken back to the promises of Google+ and its circles.

This is an apt comparison. As he rightly points out, managing ones Circles on Google+ and deciding who to share what with is exhausting to the user. On paper it seems like an excellent approach. But on every social network that has this feature – Facebook included – it is rarely used. Who wants to move people from one list to another only to move them back again when your relationship with them shifts?

Although Vero promises an algorithm free feed and no ads (it will monetise using subscriptions and charges for selling via the platform) I’m not sure that jumping from the frying pan of one silo straight into the as yet unproven fire of another is what we really need right now.

I thought about this when I signed up. However, it doesn’t take much for a platform like Vero to support the open web and be less of a silo than Facebook or Twitter. An open API, data portability, and support for one’s own domain are the main features. I can’t presume that no other platforms will support the open web eventually. In fact, imagine if Twitter did this like Medium has? Then what would people think of Twitter?

I wish them well and hope they prove me wrong but, while I think the noise about Russian developers and the CEO being the son of a former Lebanese prime minister is stupid and tantamount to inciting racial hatred, I’m afraid I won’t be signing up.

I’m very glad he brought this up. When I saw the drivel on Twitter about these details about this platform I was saddened. Are we saying all Russian developers are bad? Or all Lebanese billionaires? I would always urge caution when signing up to brand-new platforms but to think we’d all call these people out simply based on where they were born is… well Colin already said what it is.

Eliza and I poked around with Vero as much as we could while the app crashed and timed out. It won’t stick. Not because of the scaling issues – most platforms have those. It won’t stick because it will be far too noisy for users right out of the gate.

When Instagram pivoted from a check-in app to a filtered photo app it exploded because it made photo editing and publishing one simple step. It did one thing well. Slowly it has added other features but this primary feature is still the foremost one today. Vero has photos, music, links, books etc. Once the hype settles down people just want to post photos. Instagram should be scared of whatever comes next. Obviously people (including me) do not like the current algorithmic feed. But Vero is no Instagram killer.

March 1, 2018

Socialocca presents a Social Media Workshop at the February 2018 NEPA Tech meet up

Ryan K. Hertel, Socialocca

This month’s NEPA Tech meet up was yet another smashing success. If you live in northeastern Pennsylvania and are interested in the intersections of business, technology, the arts, etc. (and you want to see our area thrive in all of these things) please consider attending an upcoming event.

Ryan K. Hertel of Socialocca, a small social media advertising and management agency, gave a presentation on the current social media landscape as well as some tactics his company uses for his clients. His presentation was energetic, informative, and I’m certain everyone that attended found some value in it.

Social media and digital advertising is still on the rise in our area but it also continues to be a hard sell. Many longtime small business owners are not entrenched in social media enough to see its impact on their businesses. They do not invest heavily enough, either in time or money, to see the incredible network effects that can happen if they did. Ryan’s company, as well as Condron Media, are constantly trying to prove the value of these activities with limited budgets in our area.

The pendulum is swinging though. More and more companies are sick of feeling left out, their competition is beginning to invest in social media, and they don’t want to be left behind.

I look forward to seeing where Ryan’s company is in 5 years.

February 22, 2018

Jack Baty on follower counts

Jack Baty:

Years ago on Twitter, I would use follower counts as an indicator of authority or perhaps as a way to gauge someone’s impact on a community or topic. With so many followers, he or she must have useful or interesting things to say, right? That probably wasn’t a great way to think about follower counts even then, but it worked as often as not.

I quit Twitter with thousands of followers. Many of which I’d say were bots. Accounts with millions of followers also have a huge percentage of bots following them. I restarted my account from scratch and now only have dozens. Follower count means nothing about the person behind it.

Reminds me of this 2014 post.

January 24, 2018

Snapthread 1.5 Beta

Becky Hansmeyer:

I’m going to do something I’ve never done before: ask people to beta test my app! If you’re interested in being a part of my very first beta test, please either send an email to feedback@beckyhansmeyer.com or DM me on Twitter (@bhansmeyer). All I need to know is what email address you’d like me to send a TestFlight invite to.

If I were still on iOS I’d want to test this app.

January 9, 2018

Repost: Nitin Khanna re: Instagram hashtags

👉 Nitin Khanna:

I am LOVING Instagram’s new hashtag follow feature! It makes perfect sense and makes my feed that much more interesting! Now if only other social networks understood this simple idea.

December 14, 2017

Threads now officially supported on Twitter

Sasank Reddy, on the Twitter blog:

Now, hundreds of thousands of threads are Tweeted every day! But this method of Tweeting, while effective and popular, can be tricky for some to create and it’s often tough to read or discover all the Tweets in a thread. That’s why we’re thrilled to share that we’re making it simpler to thread Tweets together, and to find threads, so it’s easier to express yourself on Twitter and stay informed.

I am not a fan of threads. They are ungainly, hard to follow, and a terrible reading experience.

That said, you cannot control how people will use a platform that you create. You can try to stop things you don’t like. You can attempt to ban a behavior. But that usually doesn’t work. Or you can make adjustments to make it a better experience. Like when Instagram introduced Stories to cut down on people making second accounts. Twitter has chosen to try to make threads on Twitter a little easier to do and hopefully a little easier to follow.

Before I pass judgement on how they’ve done this, I’ll let them iterate on these new features a few times to see if they can get it right. But, overall, I’m not a big fan of threads so even if they build an incredible UI for them I still do not believe I’d like them. But, again, (I can’t write this strongly enough) people are going to write threads on Twitter whether or not Twitter supports them.

As Manton Reece mentioned, I do not think threads are good for the web. But I don’t think they can be eradicated. I like how Micro.blog chooses to turn longer posts into “blog posts” (whatever that means these days) but that wouldn’t be right for Twitter. It is very right for Micro.blog.

I wonder? If I didn’t have a blog – and also didn’t really know how to set one up or had no desire to do so – would I appreciate this feature? I’m thinking I would. Or, I would write longer posts on Facebook and link from Twitter to those posts. Shiver.

December 13, 2017