Wired has published an article on How to Get Started on Mastodon. In response to the sudden growth of people moving from Twitter. Including me. Mastodon is where you’ll find me posting the stuff I used to post on Twitter.
The article is at https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-get-started-use-mastodon/
Find me on Mastodon dot Social at https://mastodon.social/@ianRobinson
Newly funded App.net may be in its infancy, but it’s already attracting a slew of developers vexed by increasingly restrictive policies at the big social networks.
I wrote previously about winding down my usage of Twitter. It turned out more drastic than that. I stopped dead in my tracks on Saturday morning with this Tweet.
I did post a followup Tweet telling anyone looking at my Twitter timeline where they can find me now. One of the pointers was to my account page on the new Alpha.app.net site. AppdDotNet, or ADN as it’s also being called, is a proof of concept for the open social API envisioned by Dalton Caldwell and others. I’d recommend listening to Dalton Caldwell on This Week In Google Episode 159. It’s a great interview that provides insight into what the AppDotNet API work hopes to provide.
AppDotNet is off to a good start. There have been 120,000 messages posted so far. You can watch realtime stats here. There is loads of development activity around it. With several very nice apps in early release testing. Other services beyond AppDotNet will also be built on the API that provide social interaction services. There is already a rudimentary weblog comment system that uses it.
My activity on AppDot Net so far is as follows. Posts: 88. Followers: 49. Following: 76. I was user 530 to be granted access.
The web is full of articles about the tightening up of the guidelines and rules that Twitter will have for use of their API. I won’t rehash them here. Twitter have the right to do what they want. It’s their service. They have to make money to pay the VC’s and other investors they have. They have chosen the follow the sponsored tweets and advertisement model.
Most of the changes they are requiring from applications that display tweets (if said applications are allowed access the tweet stream at all), is that they don’t filter out the new Twitter Cards, promoted tweets and any other advertorial content that will be inserted into the main feed. Most people won’t care. Most people may not even notice. I will.
I hate ads. I don’t use any apps on iOS that are ad supported. If I can’t pay for the app to get an ad free version than I don’t use the app. The same applies for Twitter and other social network sites. I deleted my Facebook account partly for this reason (that and the fact that the content on FaceBook is mostly awful).
Whilst it’s true that the rules that will probably require 3rd party apps like TweetBot to display the advertorial content haven’t kicked in yet, it’s only a matter of time. So I’ve started to wind down my use of Twitter. I’m still debating with myself whether to just freeze it as is, or delete my account.
It’s all very disappointing. I loved Twitter. It was by far and away the best social feed on the Internet. But I refuse to be fodder to be advertised at. If that’s their plan I wish them well. I’m not staying to be part of it.
They won’t notice.
I’m not sure Willpower is the correct title for this post. But it’ll do. I recently posted this tweet to my Twitter stream:
To which Bill Cooke replied:
This got me thinking. I tend to make what looks like snap decisions about some things I want to do and once I’ve made such a decision it doesn’t matter what happens. I stick to it. So last week after a few weeks thinking about it my brain just clicked and I decided that I had to start following a more healthy lifestyle. I recognised the feeling I got at the time. It was like a virtual line in the sand and I’ve had the same feelings with other decisions before. For example I stopped smoking in the 1980’s with a similar thought process. I thought about it for about a month then one day I smoked the last cigarette I had and decided that was it. I never smoked again. That was over 20 years ago. Another, more trivial example, comes from when I was playing cricket. I was always a bowler and a joke with the bat. One year I decided that I needed to improve my batting. That year I came 2nd in the 2nd XI batting averages and scored a couple of fifties. There are other examples as well.
It seems that when I make a decision of this type I stick to it. So even if Bill’s comment is true, and to be honest I have had periods of hunger between meals in the last week, it doesn’t matter as I’ll just ignore it. It’s a strange felling and thought process to describe to people. It’s like a binary switch in my brain is flicked when I make one of these decisions and that’s it. I do whatever it takes to bring about what I’ve decided. Does anyone else get this? Does anyone know what I’m describing here (badly describing)? Is this just a manifestation of willpower? I don’t know. I just know that I recognise this type of decision when it happens and can now say for sure that the goal will be achieved. That might sound big-headed. It’s not meant to be.
Interestingly I think there is another thing that I’ve been thinking about for a while that seems to be heading to another decision of this type. It’s quite a profound one as well. Maybe more details in future.
What would be good if I could decide that I want to be a shit hot iPhone developer using this process 🙂 Unfortunately it doesn’t feel the same when thinking about that topic so I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’ll have to just trudge along on that topic.
Another test of Twitme after changing the text that is included in the Twitter notifications.
If everything works okay this post should generate a tweet on Twitter notifying people following me about a new post to the Soapbox.
EDIT: to see if edits generate Twitter notifications.
The end of a great use of Twitter 🙁
[From Phoenix mission ops: Phoenix is no longer communicating with Earth. We’ll continue to listen, but it’s likely its mission has ended.]
Since I started Twittering I’ve been posting things that used to appear here on the Soapbox, like Song of the Day, as tweets instead. I can see this increasing with Twitter been used for short posts and this site being used for longer screeds. My 3 latest tweets also appear in the sidebar on the right here. If you are not on Twitter then give it go.
This is so cool. Updates from the Mars Phoenix lander via Twitter.