Twitter Was Act One. Really fascinating feature on Jack Dorsey. It covers everything from his childhood, to Twitter, to Square.
Tag: Twitter
Why did Twitter suspend UberTwitter? Bill Gross, CEO of UberMedia, gives the background of why Twitter suspended UberTwitter, UberCurrent, and Twidroyd. Ruh oh, time to watch out for the gulag.
LongReply – When you care more than 140 characters. Interesting tool MailChimp has developed for custom support via Twitter. The keyword analysis and hourly email summaries look nifty.
The 37signals Suite and Ownership
37signals launched a bulk subscription suite for their apps a couple of days ago. In the launch announcement I noticed that they refer to users as owning their apps:
Currently the 37signals Suite is only available for people who already own a Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire account. If you own any one of these apps you can upgrade to the Suite in less than 60 seconds. We will be offering the ability to sign up for the Suite from scratch down the road, but we just don’t know when yet. Note: If you don’t own one of our products yet, and you’d like to purchase the Suite, just sign up for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire and then follow the upgrade instructions above. (emphasis mine)
Despite the fact that you pay a monthly fee to use those apps 37signals says users own the product. They back this up by allowing a functional HTML or XML export of most content at any time.
Compare that to Twitter, whose Terms of Service say “what’s yours is yours – you own your content.” Sounds similar right? Too bad Twitter does not provide a way to export more than 3200 tweets.
Retweets and permalinks
My last post threw me against an odd stumbling block with new-style retweets on Twitter: there are no permalinks for retweets.
In a post explaining the changes to retweets almost a year ago Evan Williams noted various problems with the old style of retweets. Two mentioned were that retweets were untrackable and that they created confusion over attribution. This may be true of the old style but the new method is even worse for attribution in any medium other than Twitter’s.
That post I mention above was about a slick, adaptive CSS grid framework. I only found it because Lauren Rabaino retweeted an earlier post from Nathan Smith.
So what are my options if I want to give Lauren credit in a blog post?
I can link to her profile page which will be irrelevant for that tweet in a short while.
I could link to the original tweet from Nathan Smith. This would show Lauren’s profile picture as one of the retweets but it doesn’t scale well. If the tweet were more popular and had dozens of retweets Lauren’s information might not even appear. For example, 56 people retweeted this but only 15 avatars show.
There ought to be an easier way. Twitter should have a permalink to both the original tweet as well as something I can link to showing it was Lauren that made me aware of the post.
Proper attribution in this case only exists within Twitter’s platform. Maybe that’s the point. If that’s true it’s frustrating to say the least. Retweeting is a form of publishing and we as users ought to be able to link to any form of published content on the web.
Alex Payne & The Very Last Thing He Will Write About Twitter
Alex Payne on Twitter’s need to decentralize:
Some time ago, I circulated a document internally with a straightforward thesis: Twitter needs to decentralize or it will die. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even in a decade, but it was (and, I think, remains) my belief that all communications media will inevitably be decentralized, and that all businesses who build walled gardens will eventually see them torn down.
The entire post, which Alex says are his last words concerning Twitter, is well worth the read.
Function Vs. Form
Finding happiness in a world teeming with information and products:
Happiness is easier to find when you don’t fill your life with all that clutter and that is the reason I have been thinking about all of this lately. It feels all too daunting to live a life so crammed full with information and constantly changing standards to keep track of. I search for ways to find a balancing point, a calm among the madness of life spinning around me. Its strange to think that the products we create and consume are becoming as much a part of us as the real world experiences they were built to aid us in.
Quote from Function Vs. Form by John Carey.
Leo Laporte – Buzz Kill
Leo Laporte is back to writing on his blog:
I should have been posting it here all along. Had I been doing so I’d have something to show for it. A record of my life for the last few years at the very least. But I ignored my blog and ran off with the sexy, shiny microblogs. Well no more. I’m sorry for having neglected you Leoville.
Via Dave Winer.
I Tweet, Therefore I Am…Seriously?
The New York Times published “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” today. It is too bad because I though we were past the days of mainstream media feeling to need to publish something, anything about Twitter.
The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression. I enjoy those things myself. But when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy?
If Twitter causes you to externalize every thought and post every feeling you should step back and take a deep breath. For your followers’ sake, put down the tweet button.
On a separate note, we need to stop absolving responsibility by forming broad claims as questions. If you are going to bring those questions up attempt to answer them. Otherwise you are preying on readers who do not know any better.
Medieval Multitasking and Focus
A few weeks ago Religion Dispatches published an article about medieval manuscripts and multitasking. The point is that for centuries our minds have referenced texts on multiple levels; the internet did not inherently create this distraction. There is also this gem from a David Brooks column:
The Internet-versus-books debate is conducted on the supposition that the medium is the message. But sometimes the medium is just the medium. What matters is the way people think about themselves while engaged in the two activities.