What we used to do online in the olden days

[Neil]

Shit, that makes me feel a bit sad. I can't say I've noticed here though. Still seems like the same as it ever did.

It's slowed down very suddenly this year, since about April if memory serves, but it's still reasonably busy.  It's a noticeable drop, though, and I hope we can reverse it.  It'd help if people used the Tweet/Like and +1 buttons on threads they're enjoying - those are in the thread title bit, and the first post of each thread.  Linking to cookdandbombd.co.uk from your blogs would also be greatly appreciated, and I can do linkswaps from comedychat.co.uk if people want to PM me.  Got sod all links to that.  I think CaB misses out on a lot of links as it's not a blog, so people don't tend to add it to their 'blogroll', but the place really does need some support now, if it's going to continue.  I really expected it to be growing this year, not shrinking.

I'd better get back to revising the whole thing this week.  Got a lot to do, as most of the Morris stuff (in terms of downloads) is moving to chilled.cream.org and I have a big project to get cracking on with that as well. 

[Consignia]

The thing I don't get about Twitter, is how it's supposed to replace fora as being suggested. Sure it seems to ok for an adhoc text like conversation with a friend, how are you supposed to get a real discussion between multiple people going? How are you supposed to meet new people like you would at a forum of shared interest?

I feel a bit of luddite when it comes to Twitter, but I guess I really don't get it as a concept.

[weekender]

@Consignia

wierdo dont undertsand

@Facebook

Lol, luk at dis guy wiv 3 sencences tldr lol

[I accept the terms of the]

The thing I don't get about Twitter, is how it's supposed to replace fora as being suggested.

It's not, in a thoughtful, considered way. No social media sensation is. It's replacing forums through pure momentum. People don't care about forums, because this is how they communicate online now. Most people don't have time or the desire for anything else.

Most people don't want this slowness after being shown the instant gratification and ego boosts that can be had from Twitter. Also, when being retweeted, being praised and getting thumbs up/points becomes a huge part of communication a lot of people are hesitant to drop that over something else, even if it does promote better conversations.

Social media is a clever thing. It's really hard to tell that it just gets people to use the idea of being social to broadcast rather than have conversations. It makes people think that the best reply is a (possibly wordless) congratulation for posting and the best result of a post is for it to travel across the web as a contextless quote and that's just perfect for the advertising companies behind it all. Don't you dare criticise it, because Twitter is saving Africa, didn't you know?

[Neil]

The thing I don't get about Twitter, is how it's supposed to replace fora as being suggested. Sure it seems to ok for an adhoc text like conversation with a friend, how are you supposed to get a real discussion between multiple people going? How are you supposed to meet new people like you would at a forum of shared interest?

I feel a bit of luddite when it comes to Twitter, but I guess I really don't get it as a concept.

Hashtags, RT's and #ff's.  Yet I don't see them ever really working in the way they're meant to.  #ff (follow Friday) is really just a way of saying 'I like this person' to your followers, but any new followers from it seem negligible, in my experience.  The whole thing just has a lot of ease of use.  I don't tweet much because I'm neurotic, and don't want to get on people's nerves, and only like to say something when I think it's worth saying - it might be different if follower numbers weren't staring you in the face constantly, because watching those drop is a weird kind of rejection, and I know I shouldn't care, but that's the nature of the beast.  The site is all set up to encourage you to see who is RTing you, how many times you've been RT'd etc, and people do tend to monitor those things, which can easily change what you actually say.

But when I sometimes do get into it, I find the amount of time it takes to keep up is insane!  Last night I was tweeting about Bill Hicks night, and I like to try and reply to most people who @ me, and I was there for ages doing that. 

It's nice chatting, but I also wonder how people manage to live-tweet, and actually fully experience that which they're watching - it's sort of like watching a gig through the view-finder of your camera/phone.

[SOTS]

It's nice chatting, but I also wonder how people manage to live-tweet, and actually fully experience that which they're watching - it's sort of like watching a gig through the view-finder of your camera/phone.

I can't imagine they do. I think they are probably compromising their gig-viewing experience by doing such a thing. Like those people that take terrible videos of concerts on their phone, it's almost completely pointless as well, unless you have a decent set of followers and could maybe interact with someone else at the gig?

[mrClaypole]

I remember back in 2001 our local library started giving free one hour session on the internet in the afternoons. On my day off from work I used to go and try and work out what all the fuss was about. I found a now defunct website dedicated to the KLF that had song snippets on it. I got so creamed when I found a snippet for "K cera cera" as Id never heard it before. I used the whole hours session downloading it to a floppy disc (remember those kids? eh!!!) and I promptly went to Dixons afterwards and shelled out nearly £200 on an mp3 player with a whole 24k memory bulit in. I got it home and heard what was just 10 seconds of the russian Red army singing said song. I was amazed at how clear it sounded, but disapointed I had paid so much money out to hear 10 seconds of a song.
But a year later I bought my own PC and went online. I used to cream my pants at being able to find such obscure songs and recent chart hits that I vowed Id never buy another record again.
But about 2 years later, I started to buy again as I missed having the sleeve notes and artwork and of course my guilt about taking money out of Paul McCartneys and the like mouths was too much to bare.

I now mainly use the web for the occasional downloading to sample albums to see if they are worth buying or not, but mainly as a distraction in my otherwise mundane existance.