My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

I'm starting to get tired of this blog, which is a normal thing for me after having the same blog for a year or two. Not sure what I want to use in it's place, or maybe I just need a new web project to occupy my time.

As I hinted at in my last post, I've been really inspired from the content and user base over at hacker news. One such blog-related topic that really stands out, is a user over there who runs their blog through github (example post). The whole idea of a host-less blog is really intriguing to me. People keep coming up with amazing new ways to leverage github and I love it. Maybe I'll try to do something over there.

Music Blog?

For a while now, I've wanted to start a music tumbler. It would be a place where I would just list new music I bought, not like a review-type blog or anything. I've always been a big music freak and lately I've found myself buying a lot of music. I enjoy nearly all types of music, as well as sharing my music with my friends and learning of new bands from them. What better way to find out about new music than to share what I'm into.

We'll have to see if I actually carry through on this idea. I've probably sat down a handful of times to get it going, but always decided against it at the last minute. Maybe talking publicly about it will be the last push I need.

Tumblr Fills a Niche for Me

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p>I created a tumblr account a month or so ago and really like it. I have always found myself posting links to twitter that I enjoyed. I realized that a link-dump style twitter stream was not the type of content I enjoyed reading (as a follower), so why was I forcing my friends to read the exact shit that I didn't want to see? I still wanted to share interesting content with an audience and that's where tumblr steps in.

No More Twitter

I deleted my twitter account last night. With the huge surge in popularity with twitter in the past couple months I have become increasingly annoyed with the service as a whole. The stupid "who can get one million followers" thing between Aston Kutcher and CNN was not quite the last straw for me, but it was close. Then yesterday my friend showed me Ice-T's account (twitter gang? come on Ice-T, don't be a fucking jackass), then that very same day Oprah gets a twitter account and Shaq is replying to her first message? Well fuck me. I am out of here.

We'll have to see how this one pans out. I still want to read what my twitter friends are up to, but I don't want to have an account. Twitter makes it very difficult to do this. Maybe some type of third party service is in order. I've been inspired by my coworkers use of all client-side coding to pull in interesting twitter content, maybe something like that could be cobbled together to allow people to check up on their twitter friends without actually needing an account.

Lots of Rambling Thoughts

In short, I've been going through a lot of changes lately WRT my web presence and how I browse the web. I'll have to see how it all shakes out in the coming months, but this post has helped me solidify some recurring thoughts I've been having and also put my ideas to paper.

10:13 AM | 7 Comments

Comments

  1. I still want to read what my twitter friends are up to, but I don't want to have an account. Twitter makes it very difficult to do this.

    I think they actually make it pretty easy... if you just want to follow a handful of people, you can subscribe to their individual timelines' RSS feeds, or if you want to follow a large batch you can probably create a custom search and then subscribe to the RSS feed for that search.

    Of course that does assume that you're willing to use RSS at all; I know some folks who deliberately deny themselves that kind of firehose of information...

    Rob L. on

  2. Music blog is a great idea. I've had a long-time plan to do that but never the impetus to actually start.

    As for following on Twitter, you could always make an account just for following, lock its updates, send its emails to an OtherInbox account that you block, and then subscribe to its home page RSS feed.

    Grant Hutchins on

  3. Rob, I like the idea of subscribing to a search. Didn't realize that option was available.

    Grant, also a good idea.

    Yay for options!

    justin on

  4. I agree, there's a lot of bullshit going on with Twitter lately as it's getting more and more popular, but the beauty of its following/follower design is that it doesn't affect me unless I want it to.

    Ice-T's gang is obviously stupid, but since I'm not following him, it doesn't affect me.

    Bots and other spam accounts follow me, but it doesn't bother me because I'm not forced into seeing their updates.

    Ashton and CNN's contest was stupid but harmless, and in the end gave $100,000 to Malaria no more.

    Shaq and Oprah? That's just funny: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dot_tiff/3450147199/

    Twitter is still a valuable service on so many levels, and it really boggles my mind how you can admit that there are good parts by saying that you "want to read what [your] twitter friends are up to" and figure out a different way to do something that Twitter already does really well, but at the same time think the noise that can be so easily ignored is such a problem that you'd delete your account which only removes your ability to participate, when your participation was not the problem.

    I do not understand.

    There's a lot of bullshit on email, but you still have an email address.

    There are a lot of really stupid internet pages, but you still have a web site.

    There's a lot of crap on TV, but you still have cable.

    There are a lot of idiot drivers out there, but you still drive a car.

    That's life, man. No need to retreat just because there are idiots in the world.

    Jeff Keen on

  5. Admittedly, it is a statement as much as it is a preference.

    One of things that has always greatly annoyed me about twitter, which I have failed to mention, is that when you are watching somebody, they know. When you stop watching somebody, they know.

    I do not like this. Not one little bit.

    Unfortunately, secretfollower.com is already registered :(

    I think I am using the "twitter popularity" issue as an excuse to cancel my twitter account for reasons that I have already had for a very long time.

    BTW, Jeff, I know you can sympathize with me when I say I don't like something solely because of its popularity. :p

    justin on

  6. If something I'm not into yet gets super hyped, I tend to get skeptical and turned off, yes.

    But if I'm into something and later it gets hyped and everyone jumps on the bandwagon? That's just the reality of being an early adopter. I'm fine with that.

    The person is notified when you start following them, yes, but in your case where the only people you're interested in following are your friends, is that really a problem? You don't want me to know that you're following my updates? Why so shy?

    And when people stop following me, I have no idea unless I comb through my follower list daily checking for lost followers, which I do not.

    I still don't understand your decision to delete your account. All those @mr_justin's mean nothing now. What was I replying to when I said this? The world will never know. The internet is worse off without your Twitter account, even if you never used it again.

    Jeff Keen on

  7. WRT to the whole following thing ... there's this bullshit underlying thing going on with twitter that if you stop following somebody then they're going to resent you (I'm referring to friends you see day-to-day). It's not as simple as an RSS feed (even though it should be) where if you want to stay up to date with somebody, you subscribe, and if you don't want to read, you unsubscribe. There's none of this idiotic "oh I want to unsubscribe but I can't because then this person will be mad at me". It's such an issue for some folks that there's a niche market for apps like "quitter". It's not a shy thing at all.

    The world will be fine without my tweets. Nobody knows about the awesome conversations we have in the offline world, yet we still seem to find a way to make it through the day.

    rm -fr that twitter account, it will be fine ;)

    justin on
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