A lot of the ideas in this thread are almost identical to what the closed web monoliths have been doing for some time, and continue to do so today. As such I think they’re best mostly left to third parties (via apps available on various vendors), whilst the first party MB experience should tread carefully – I’m not saying it should lack features but I believe avoiding bloat ought to be one of the top priorities to maintain it as the core of the platform.

I truly believe the best version of the first-party Micro.blog experience is as the Naked Robotic Core. Either that or we’ll one day be met with Micro.blog Moments and Faves From Somebody You Follow filling up our timelines, rendering this entire enterprise a big waste of time.

(Image: man appreciating his onions, with captions about twitter; “me” “bad tweets” “Thousands of books, journals and articles I could ever want to read about.”)

I can’t stop thinking about this image. It feels like a great representation of why I’m generally done with both the closed web and social media in general, specifically with regard to personal use.

Anyway, I’m with Matt Haughey, Daniel Jalkut, Simon Willison, Marco Arment, and all of the people already using Micro.blog.

Let’s get back to blogging.

(sources: Pat’s tweet; Medwyn’s tweet)

… because why else do I have a blog.

I replied to Cheri Baker’s excellent post and inevitably wrote far too much for a comment:

Sure you find out about other people online, even get to know them to varying degrees but the most substantial, most humane connections do not occur via proxy.

As such my question is: is it worth constantly trying these variations on an idea and throwing them out, if one is already doing the best version of the limited task for which it is needed? I’m not sure leaving Twitter entirely makes much of a difference if you just throw your whole lot in with something else, assuming you’re looking to make at least some part of yourself available to the wider world; rather, keep something like Twitter in its place, compartmentalised and use something else for the most substantial effort with your online contributions… say, a blog, or even simply using a platform offering something different.

At some point soon I need to make some firm decisions about all of this stuff, not least because it is such a drain of energy and time neither of which I have much of to begin with. As time passes I believe pragmatism will win out:

• First, and always first, what do you want from your time on the web.
  • Whilst peer pressue is a fun thing, this is your life to maintain no matter how much you choose to share it with others.
• To what degree do your most idealistic thoughts do more damage to your goals if you follow them strictly to the letter.
  • Let’s not forget that it is both OK and entirely healthy to actually change your thinking on, well, most issues.

Let’s look at that second one in particular, since so much of Twitter is often guided by people’s different contributions to the collective culture and that is at least influenced by how we feel about the world and how it works.

Even if you stay in the same general area (ideologically speaking), your thoughts can change to something no longer befitting of those upon which you chose to take your particular stand. And all of this time, and this energy, to decide about the thing… the trappings of the things… without truly actually doing the thing!

There is no doubting the influence of these closed networks, obviously, but if they become more than just the means to your goals I am not confident we are using them as the tool they ought to be. The approach feels so confused; the tool, Twitter, ought not be the focus of our efforts especially when the worst actors within our communities simply could not care less about this angle – they are too busy using it to their ends!

Perhaps it is time to simply step back, take a deep breath, put Twitter into the compartment within which we can maintain its usefulness as tool – rather than, say, as public consciousness – and turn our most intense efforts towards the issues underlying that which many people currently agree to be the most urgent problem.

Sometimes I end up creating a thread using the Micro.blog Conversation view and I actually did so intentionally.

There is great flexibility within this system, and even though it would be great if everything was easily explained let’s not forget the idea that Facebook/Twitter are “simple and easy” is in fact a big pile of bullshit. As such, when it comes to comparisons I would say there is more to it than feature vs. feature; there is in fact a larger conversation to be had about how we use the web, how we live on it, and what it is we should expect from other people.

I know such large topics are not normally covered on a “social media site”, with all of the nuance inherit therein, but maybe it is time to reconsider this idea and just choose a better platform.

Maybe it is time to make yourself uncomfortable, place greater value on your time spent on the web, and find that thinking differently is possible outside of the corporate social web.