DISQUS

micahwittman · 1 month ago

Lindsay, the quality of your thought and the skill with which you have expression it is stunning. I wish there was one thing you said I could disagree with in your piece, because it might look like I'm fawning, but there isn't and I'll have to live with that risk.

The best universal prose are those which are unapologetically specific. Concrete. In a time and place. In that sense this is perhaps the best commentary / call to action on "community" I have read.

Whatever may be dead, blogging is not one of them.

BlueCockatoo · 1 month ago

*blush* Thanks, Micah! Glad you enjoyed it. I just wanted to say my peace on the whole "FF is dead" thing. It's kind of funny that the only time I seem to post to my blog anymore is when I'm really excited or pretty pissed off. HAH! I'd rather just spend time on FriendFeed where the conversation is.

mellieReed · 1 month ago

Enjoyed your thoughts, Lindsey. Your observation on Twitter is trenchant. Elsewise, why are Tweetups so popular? Bonding has to be done offline in the real world. And that is just fine. In an odd way, form follows function there, too. But SMs like forums, chats, and FriendFeed do allow you form relationships right there online. Chats and forums are conversations sychronous and asynchronous respectively. But FreindFeed adds with it the dimension of critical thinking, thoughtful dialogue, and preservation. Because of that it sometimes becomes the modern version of letters in real time. I think that is its distinction.

BlueCockatoo · 1 month ago

I get your point about Tweetups and don't deny that conversation and connections are possible on Twitter, just that they are a lot more difficult to participate in, IMO. You can barely complete a thought in 140 characters (or less if it's an @reply or DM). To have a conversation is slow, confusing and disconnected... It's a very masochistic way to try to build relationships with people. That doesn't stop people from trying and succeeding in a lot of circumstances. I would guess that a lot of the people who connect via Twitter actually build that relationship via other more accommodating tools like blog comments or email or they are forced to resort to physical meetups like Tweetups to get to know people better. I would imagine (in my inexperience) that most Tweetups are more like a convention where everyone is meeting everyone else, but when I've meet with my FriendFeed friends it's more like we're just old friends getting together.

ZuDfunck · 1 month ago

Excellent post. You have crystallized and captured the essence of what the internet provides and what platform is best for me.
I thank you...

@silverton · 1 month ago

Awesome, Lindsay. I think there might could be a fifth in your list:

5. Taken the newly acquired capabilities and lessons learned and moved forward to explore the next frontiers; honoring all that has gone before, yet relentlessly driven by the ambiguous possibilities and potentials of what is yet to come.

To chillax on the essay-long comments here, my full thoughts are at http://bit.ly/NextBigThingitis for any interested.

mariefrance · 1 week ago

Great post! A good topic for my custom written papers.