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Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

longform.org

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Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#21

Post by TimWillebrands »

jmnicolas wrote: post #18

Never heard of this site before, but if I could hazard a guess to why they're shutting down, who nowadays has the time to read a long text for leisure? Not many people I guess. My opinion is that the information loop has entered hyper velocity and anything long form cannot be mainstream anymore. If I take my case as an example, the only activity where I focus for more than 5 minutes is coding. I skim news just readin…

I get what you're saying, but long form podcast type of content seems to be somewhat mainstream?

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#23

Post by tangjurine »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #19
jmnicolas wrote: post #18

Never heard of this site before, but if I could hazard a guess to why they're shutting down, who nowadays has the time to read a long text for leisure? Not many people I guess. My opinion is that the information loop has entered hyper velocity and anything long form cannot be mainstream anymore. If I take my case as an example, the only activity where I focus for more than 5 minutes is coding. I skim news just readin…

Really? The short story is now a dead artform. Even 'trilogies' aren't a thing anymore - anything less than five thick tomes doesn't sell. Movies are now three hours long, but even that seems to be a half-measure and the cinematic form is now being replaced by miniseries. (I remember when a 90 hour movie was considered long.)

90 minutes?

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#24

Post by mmahemoff »

jart wrote: post #15
drx wrote: post #6

That's a shame. Fortunately, it looks like the archive will stay up: https://twitter.com/aaronlammer/status/1478749874053169154

It's a bunch of links to Wired and GQ. Maybe they wouldn't have needed to shut down if only Yahoo hadn't killed del.icio.us which used to be the social media platform for bookmarks. I'm still crying on the inside over that.

Did Yahoo kill Delicious? They bought it, didn't do much with it, and sold it to YouTube's founders.

But would it have survived as anything more than a personal bookmark organiser (ie pinboard) anyway?

The killer feature of delicious was popular links, which has since been used as the main structure for forums such as Digg (originally), Reddit, and Hacker News. Curated feeds on Twitter/FB/etc also work to share popular links.

For example, you can use r/longform to find the same kind of links delicious would have provided. https://www.reddit.com/r/longform/top/?t=year.

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#25

Post by brnt »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #19
jmnicolas wrote: post #18

Never heard of this site before, but if I could hazard a guess to why they're shutting down, who nowadays has the time to read a long text for leisure? Not many people I guess. My opinion is that the information loop has entered hyper velocity and anything long form cannot be mainstream anymore. If I take my case as an example, the only activity where I focus for more than 5 minutes is coding. I skim news just readin…

Really? The short story is now a dead artform. Even 'trilogies' aren't a thing anymore - anything less than five thick tomes doesn't sell. Movies are now three hours long, but even that seems to be a half-measure and the cinematic form is now being replaced by miniseries. (I remember when a 90 hour movie was considered long.)

> (I remember when a 90 hour movie was considered long.)

I think we all still agree on that!

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#26

Post by rvieira »

tangjurine wrote: post #23
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The short story is now a dead artform. Even 'trilogies' aren't a thing anymore - anything less than five thick tomes doesn't sell. Movies are now three hours long, but even that seems to be a half-measure and the cinematic form is now being replaced by miniseries. (I remember when a 90 hour movie was considered long.)

90 minutes?

The unit is called "1 Woody Allen".

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#27

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

brazzy wrote: post #16
jeppesen-io wrote: post #8

I feel bad, I tried it but if I'm honest I couldn't focus on long form Not a good thing

TBH, a lot of "long form" articles are just shitty. Randomly interrupting a current event story with unrelated biographic episodes of the protagonists does not magically result in a more valuable, high-brow form of reporting.

I love the scheme of repeatedly building up towards the answer to one of the central questions of the subject and then yanking the rug, digressing into some backstory of a minor personage or historic aside to pad out another page.

And by love I mean absolutely despise.

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#29

Post by md_ »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #27
brazzy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, a lot of "long form" articles are just shitty. Randomly interrupting a current event story with unrelated biographic episodes of the protagonists does not magically result in a more valuable, high-brow form of reporting.

I love the scheme of repeatedly building up towards the answer to one of the central questions of the subject and then yanking the rug, digressing into some backstory of a minor personage or historic aside to pad out another page. And by love I mean absolutely despise.

What really gets me is how, in narrative fiction, the author knows what's going to happen in the plot at the very beginning, but they only gradually reveal it to the reader throughout the story.

Re: Longform.org is shutting down its article recommendations service

#30

Post by ejoso »

TimWillebrands wrote: post #21
jmnicolas wrote: post #18

Never heard of this site before, but if I could hazard a guess to why they're shutting down, who nowadays has the time to read a long text for leisure? Not many people I guess. My opinion is that the information loop has entered hyper velocity and anything long form cannot be mainstream anymore. If I take my case as an example, the only activity where I focus for more than 5 minutes is coding. I skim news just readin…

I get what you're saying, but long form podcast type of content seems to be somewhat mainstream?

Personally, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks at 2X. Otherwise I’d be swallowed by the torrential wave of content. I still am at that, to some extent.
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