Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and The Gather...

Three days without Twitter was certainly a multi-faceted experience, fraught with many lessons, Pain & Pleasure. For several months I had been examining, both publicly and privately, the model of a truly networked expression of the twenty-first century blog, or web log, as we once called it, a year or so ago. We had come a long way from the proverbial ' What-I-Had-For-Breakfast ' expression, albeit an expression that combined both text, long-form and short, with still photography, audio and video enchancements.

For one thing testing had repeatedly demonstrated that it was not limited to 140 characters. generally you can get away with up to 246 characters, give or take a character. I finally settled in on 120 plus a Tiny URL directing the interested party or parties to a more lengthy post e.g. Gather.

[ To Be Continued ]

What Has Been Your Experience With Networked Blogging ?

Comments: 9

Blind Lady Liberty Aug 7, 2009, 8:19pm EDT

I try not to get too blogged down.

I would like to see more people reporting real local news and real stories of everyday people. Much of the internet is just mirroring network media. Much to say about nothing and nothing to say about something. Many of the blogs I used to frequent have all been shut down.

Eric Cabot Steed Aug 7, 2009, 8:33pm EDT

Do you regularly search key words & phrases that interest you, and then refine your search using Google Blog Search, and News Alerts ?

Blind Lady Liberty Aug 21, 2009, 1:44pm EDT

Not really. I'll follow a link on someone's blog or comments, sometimes follow more, but most of the places I go I know where I'm going and my bookmarks are well organized for my uses. The only reason why I "Google" at all is that I use a browser that defaults to it all the time. If I want to get past the internet nonsense I will use Cuil or Scroogle with Firefox or Opera to avoid the false "malicious website" warnings by Google.

I want to know what's happening in real life. I'm not much into celebrities or the govt gods or any of the garbage that people call "news". I like people who follow the events from beginning to end providing whatever facts, information and documents they can. Not a one liner line of BS from one side of the story. In the past five years or so that has become difficult to do as people who are worthy of calling themselves reporters are shut down, harassed and even arrested. This time in 2004 I had 32 sites where I could get accurate, non biased information about what was happening in a particular court or the official offices and agencies of a few states and every single site has since been closed down.

Eric Cabot Steed Aug 21, 2009, 2:00pm EDT

Have you written about this experience yet ?

Blind Lady Liberty Aug 21, 2009, 6:31pm EDT

I'm not much of a writer and the majority of people prefer headline news with no content. Most don't care about the topics I'm interested in, like how the legislation enacted by congress and the states really works in real life with everyday people. Gather is a pretty good example of this. A lot of parrots. I'm here more to watch/read than to write. Liz G. has the highest views per article of anyone I've seen here (2500+) and she primarily writes about celebrities. She is a good writer but her content is of no interest to me. The only reason I read her articles is to see why they go from zero to hundreds of views in a few hours. I've watched some of her views rise in leaps and bounds in a matter of minutes. I'm quite certain that she is linked all over the place. Wherever you go the items that get the most views are about something mundane and for the most part irrelevant in peoples lives, or at least should be. I had an acquaintance years ago that used to talk about these people (celebs) like they were her friends an family and was all consumed with their imaginary lives yet my communications with real people around the world who pay me for my services was, and I quote, "a stupid waste of time".

I follow a few sites and authors/bloggers for specific reasons but I prefer the "real people". "Hi, this is me this is my dog and this is what I do." What I did today, yesterday, what's for dinner etc. I'm not interested about someone who exploits their children for fame or fortune, who's sleeping with who etc. Too much reality for me.

Sorry if I interjected a reply to your other post here in with this one we're having some bad weather and the connection keeps going down.

Blind Lady Liberty Aug 21, 2009, 6:33pm EDT

Trivial would have been a better word than mundane.

reply to this comment

David W. Aug 7, 2009, 8:20pm EDT

I do not Twitter, text or instant message, however I have attempted Blogging, though with very little success. It seems I am limited in this modern world. You might say handicapped, but I have no desire to go into internet or electronic overload.