41–50 of 121 posts
I wasn't aware of how Facebook won over MySpace by using a bot to allow you to use MySpace THROUGH Facebook so you didn't really lose anything when you opened a Facebook account and started using it. Now why couldn't there be a service that was simply a super-bot, it would automatically open an account for me on all social media platforms. It would then post all my entries to all other platforms, relay the responses…
Doctorow continues to be as wise as ever.
But then I read his work and pretty much always find it lacking.
For example, this post. It starts with a very clear point: huge numbers of users are leaving Facebook and Twitter, to the point where these companies are in serious trouble and will soon go the way of Myspace.
But then... There's nothing to back it up. No data. You're just supposed to believe it's true because Doctorow said it and he's famous, I guess.
Except that he always does this. Leaves out critical data, doesn't back up his points. So I don't trust him.
Worse, I think he essentially writes wish fulfilment narratives aimed directly at people with my political leanings. These are close enough to the truth and even closer to what I want to be true, so they come dangerously close to short-circuiting the scepticism I work so hard to apply to everything I read.
Part of the issue is he spams his followers with retweets constantly, all day. People may not know they can turn off retweets for someone. They may just mute them, and continue to follow.
It's very much like Cory to write a long article about this when really what's happening is him and the people he follows are becoming more irrelevant.
23 likes / 8,722 views = 0.26 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1612122825288208387
44 likes / 9,384 views = 0.46 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1611993024879554560
193 likes / 15,400 views = 1.25 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1611976607845224451
44 likes / 29,300 views = 0.15 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1611858168774098945
162 likes / 48,500 views = 0.33 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1610282255057813504
I had to scroll a long time just to get those 5 because he's constantly retweeting.
1.0 is what you would want. Anything around 0.5 or less is really bad.
He hardly has any replies to his tweets. IMO, replies and quote tweets are what people are using twitter for. He also links off twitter too much.
SocialBlade stats: https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/doctorow/monthly
> "Twitter got bought out by a low-attention-span, overconfident billionaire who started pulling out Jenga blocks to see whether the system would fall over, and when it did, we all got crushed by the falling blocks." I've spent years mocking Twitter for it's short character limit (designed IMO for the low-attention-span trend) and the siloizing/bunkering effect of Facebook and groups (where never a contrary opinion i…
The other wrong thing about that quote is that Twitter hasn’t fallen over - it’s operating the same as it ever was.
The network effects are still quite strong. Search and useful recommendations are still excellent on Twitter.
> "Twitter got bought out by a low-attention-span, overconfident billionaire who started pulling out Jenga blocks to see whether the system would fall over, and when it did, we all got crushed by the falling blocks." I've spent years mocking Twitter for it's short character limit (designed IMO for the low-attention-span trend) and the siloizing/bunkering effect of Facebook and groups (where never a contrary opinion i…
I have never been able to use Twitter without this being dropped blatantly on my face. You can't go straight to a Twitter user's profile and read their own messages in a meaningful manner, let alone the main feed or search feed. And don't get me started on the threads and the arcane magic necessary to follow them completely.
There’s that old saying “God gave you two ears and one mouth, please use in that proportion.” So much of the social aspect of the internet has been about “giving more people a voice”, and we’ve chased that desire at the blogging, milli-blogging, micro-blogging level. I’m undecided, but I have a hunch that the increase in “speaking” via the internet has not increased at the same level as encouraging people to “listen.…
There’s that old saying “God gave you two ears and one mouth, please use in that proportion.” So much of the social aspect of the internet has been about “giving more people a voice”, and we’ve chased that desire at the blogging, milli-blogging, micro-blogging level. I’m undecided, but I have a hunch that the increase in “speaking” via the internet has not increased at the same level as encouraging people to “listen.…
> "Twitter got bought out by a low-attention-span, overconfident billionaire who started pulling out Jenga blocks to see whether the system would fall over, and when it did, we all got crushed by the falling blocks." I've spent years mocking Twitter for it's short character limit (designed IMO for the low-attention-span trend) and the siloizing/bunkering effect of Facebook and groups (where never a contrary opinion i…
I like using saved searches to find stuff that has a minimum amount of engagement:
https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Are...
Click the three dots to modify or save the Advanced Search. The saved search stays in your search field for easy access.
You still get some of the good parts of the algo in the 'Top' section of the search results.
Lists are a really nice way to dampen the more noisey accounts. I haven't found a way to specify a list in the search results.
Also, you can follow a lot of relevant people, and then specify 'people you follow' in the search. Then if you search for a current event, you can get info from people you trust more.