Token Entry #1
January 23rd, 2008
For some reason probably known to everyone except me, months will pass with no significant Irish tech-related events, then a bunch of them come together at once. Like Bus Éireann, if you’re lucky. Looks like the end of Feb/early March is one of the hotspots this year - Web2Ireland has all the latest news on upcoming events in Ireland. It might be difficult for me to pick and choose which [un?]conferences to attend. I’m considering Creative Camp (well done on the new website) in Kilkenny Castle. I suppose Blog Talk will have to be on the list, seeing as it’s being held in Cork.
If it’s not bad enough that I’m attending a conference about blogging, well I have to admit to skulking in the shadows of the social media darkside this month, caught in the maelstrom of Twitter. Never thought I’d get hooked on it, I always assumed it was just a big club full of narcissistic attention-whores who liked to bash Robert Scoble in 140 characters or less. Good for tracking events like the Irish election. It made more sense to have everyone migrate over to the technically superior Jaiku.
I was going to write a big long post apologising for having doubted Twitter, trying to convey what is so great about it, and to get a few more Irish people using it. But Damien has summed up enough just now on his blog. If it’s all about the conversation, there is no doubt that Jaiku has failed, there is no buzz. Also, there is something superior about the non-linear flow of conversation on Twitter - while it is more difficult to accurately follow what’s going on, it is easier to dip in and dip out with the added advantage of not having to read through a string of boring posts like a forum (chez Jaiku). I can’t help feeling that reading in 140 character chunks is somehow affecting my brain - not just the way I read and write but the way I talk and think. Who knows what evolution is going to throw up in a few decades if we keep this restriction.
All Twitter needs now is more normal people; dentists, fishermen, students, accountants… anything other than the same old “early adopters” that you see popping up everywhere droning on about the latest additions to the Facebook API. It will be great when there are hundreds of Cork people bopping around in the Twittisphere spewing their thoughts on Munster rugby or traffic on the South Link. My profile is here (jgalvin) so add me and I’ll reciprocate (as long as you’re not a bot or a spammer or something).
On a completely different note - kudos to all involved at Two Tits and a Vote, an armchair campaign to advocate for better women’s health care in Ireland. Starting with postcards to Mary Harney.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 18:39 pm
My ode to Twitter is still up, and I still feel the same way. A waste of space for wasters of space. Sorry James.
I hate the term “unconference” too.
Perhaps I’m getting old. Or perhaps I’m just wise…
adam
January 23rd, 2008 at 19:08 pm
Haha, did you make that sh1tter site? You were a notblogger like myself for so long I know exactly where you’re coming from, but there came a point when I say “fuck it” and joined ‘em. Twitter is unusual, because from the outside it appears much worse than it is. What the outsider sees is little one-off twitter posts from blogger types about social network portability and all that stuff, but it does not accurately represent the overall twitter buzz.
I signed up in the summertime for some conference, but didn’t feel like adding 50 friends, and I missed out on the benefit. I got sucked in because over Christmas Blacknight hosting was up and down, and Twitter was a good place to find out what was going on.
18:11: (one guy) “is blacknight down”
18:12: (another guy) “My email is not working”
18:14: (one guy) “still down, appears to be just this shared server”
18:18: (another guy) Spoke to someone from the company and they are working on it now
18:20: (third guy) “The new Facebook theme for Ubuntu is so three years ago. Mark Zucklesworth has lost it.”
It’s hard to explain… To the outside observer browsing through a Twitter log, it looks like there is nothing but absolute drivel. Looking back on what I’ve written it appears this way too, but the same could be said if you recorded conversation in the pub or something. Most of the bits of conversation back and forth, when taken in isolation are really dumb or pointless. But the stupid little bits and pieces add up to form a real conversation, kind of like an IRC log.
While Jaiku is like a distributed discussion forum, Twitter is more akin to a distributed IRC channel. That’s the other great aspect - there are other people involved in the conversation who’s replies you might not even see. If you see the replies, you might add/follow the person, and thus the pool of participants expands.
I’m a bit of a hermit, and I don’t care about meeting new people, but at my most cynical I would regard new people “in my network” as a new source of information. One extra person to tell me when Blacknight is down. One extra Cork person to break the news that Ronan O’Gara has just been injured. One extra American Debian user to point out a critical security flaw. Of course it is more than just a source of information, I don’t talk to my offline friends simply to gather information, but I’m not going to hark on about any sentimental reasons here because that would be going too far. It’s not like I love twitter or anything…
January 23rd, 2008 at 19:23 pm
I came up with the idea, Walter Wynne helped me with the design, and I wrote most of the copy. I’m pretty sure I haven’t earned a single penny from it, but that wasn’t really the point anyway.
I understand the point of Twitter and I can see how it /could/ be useful to some people, but like the so-called blogosphere, it’s generally an enormous amount o noise and very, very little signal. When forums have a better ratio, it’s time to switch off.
That’s why I call my site “my site”. It’s not a blog, it just happens to use blogging software as a platform. If I had the time, I’d write my own. I’m a hermit too btw. Don’t do the phone if I can possibly avoid it. Hate IM, no time for IRC.
Did I see your company sponsoring Most Humourous Post in the Blog Awards or am I just being blond?
adam
January 23rd, 2008 at 19:24 pm
Bugger, sorry about the formatting. Forgot to close me tag, how unprofessional of me!
adam /hangs head in shame
January 24th, 2008 at 0:16 am
Very true, and twitter does have a much higher proportion of noise in the mix than anything else (”mick is going to brush his teeth soon”). Doesn’t bother me though I do use IM and IRC so maybe I’ve grown accustomed to the noise.
Ya we’re sponsoring most humorous post. Hope someone nominated Ode to Twitter.
January 24th, 2008 at 0:28 am
Errah each to their own I guess. You won’t catch me on there in the near future anyway.
Great to see Most Humourous Post remaining a Cork institution, glad ye picked it up!
adam