marks.dk
On experiences and the value of those
I’ve started jotting down the ideas I have for blog posts in Things, which is not a groundbreaking idea, but I actually want to fulfill some of the promises I’ve made myself and wrote about last week. One of the promises is to blog a bit more – say, once a week – and this is one of those posts.
So far this year, the biggest change in my everyday intake of information is the “newness” of the stuff I read. I’ve removed almost everything resembling news sites in my Google Reader, and started focusing a lot more on crafted blog posts as well as visual blogs about architecture and interior design. Now, when I flip through the items in Google Reader, I rest more; I spend a bit more time reading every blog post than I did before, and I appreciate the ones that are well-written a whole lot more (plus I get to look at nice photos of people’s homes).
It’s a change that has already happened in other aspects, without me thinking about the pretty obvious connection. I don’t listen to music on CDs and I don’t watch movies on DVDs anymore – I stream it from my iPhone, Mac or a hard disk plugged into my tv (an absolutely beautiful feature), and I do it because it’s easier.
It also means that I tend to rush through it without thinking about what I listen to, or sometimes even what I watch (unless it’s The Wire which is the best series I’ve ever watched – more on that in another blog post).
So, the other day I put on a vinyl, sat down and studied the cover, sleeve, lyrics, artwork. The whole package. And I thought about how much work had gone into making the album – it was so more than the music. It was a complete experience.
An experience I actually want to pay for – and that’s the rub.
The other day, we had a long, and heated, discussion on “Bølgen“, a Danish magazine published and maintained by Bjarne Tveskov on Google Wave, about the future of newspapers. I argue that the problem with newspapers lie in the name; it’s news. On paper. Paper is slow. News are fast. They are mutually exclusive now.
Where did I learn about the earthquake in Haiti? Twitter. Where do I keep getting the latest updates about it? Yes. Twitter. It’s too fast for even the newspaper’s websites, so why do they even keep on fighting the battle? (Oh yeah, advertising. Forgot about that.)
If I want something on paper, it needs to be something more than yesterday’s news, because I won’t appreciate it – nor pay for it.
Make me a weekly magazine in Google Wave, curated by a guy I like to follow on his blog, Twitter-profile etc. and I’ll gladly pay for it. Which I did. Same goes for Daring Fireball; I love that blog and read it religiously, so when John Gruber printed a new round of t-shirts, I bought two. Panic also made a new t-shirt with the leaf from Coda embroidered – bought one of those as well. Mikkel Malmberg releases an EP every year around Christmas and I happily paid for that as well.
It’s the stuff that I feel is of the highest quality, and relevance, I want to pay for. It’s the stuff that I know people cared about creating that I can truly appreciate, and are willing to pay for; whether it’s a magazine in Google Wave, a well-written blog, a piece of software, an iPhone app, an album on 220g luxury vinyl with included poster signed by the band etc.
Create value for me by giving me an experience, and I’d be happy to pay for it. Try to keep up with every startup in the world, give me yesterday’s news, pour gallons of water on the rumor mill or cover every ridiculous celebrity’s latest steps, and I’ll take my money with me elsewhere.
Update: To those of you who want to see what I read in Google Reader, you can follow my shared items at 2kg.dk/shared and/or see the whole list of feeds I subscribe to at marks.dk/greader.
The Death of RT and the Inevitable Rise of Via
It might seem like navel-gazing taken to the highest possible level, but killing the concept of re-tweeting really is a hobbyhorse of mine. I can’t say how much I absolutely loathe the extensive use of re-tweets that clog up my Twitter-stream.
Other people have said it before me, so I’m (thankfully) not alone on this matter:
John Gruber:
“I hate the whole “RT†thing. Just link to noteworthy tweets, don’t regurgitate them.” Link: daringfireball.net
Loren Brichter:
“RT†is typically used for verbatim retweets, sort of like the equivalent of “Fwd†for those chain emails your grandmother still sends you where Bill Gates will pay you money if you forward it to 10 people. “via†on the other hand is used when you want to add your own context to some existing tweet while attributing it to the original author.” Link: blog.atebits.com
Craig Chockenberry:
“@buzz Exactly. “via” also encourages the person forwarding the information to add their own context to the tweet.” Link: @chockenberry
When you re-tweet something, you take whatever somebody wrote and put “RT @username” in front of it. No context. No original thought on your part. Just plain old copying what others wrote, though still with credit. Where have I seen this before?
This is from a Danish article from Politiken that is based on an article written by Ritzau. If I look for this article on Ekstra Bladet, BT, Berlingske etc. they all look the same. Ritzau is to the newspaper business is what re-tweeting is to Twitter; an excuse for blindly copying what others wrote without adding the personal context to it that would have made it worthwhile for me to read. I probably don’t follow the person you are re-tweeting, and there’s perhaps a reason for that – but I follow you, and let know why you think that particular link is interesting. If it’s something you quote – quote it properly and give credit with a “via”.
It’s the same case for blogs. A lot of bloggers would get pissed at me for stealing their blog posts and posting a “This guy says:” and then copy-pasting the whole post – even though I argued that “what you wrote was brilliant – couldn’t have said it better myself” it would still be frowned upon.
I hope somebody can see my point in this and understand why I get angry when stupid, mindnumbing re-tweets are published over and over and over again. It really is simple:
- Quote when needed
- Give attribution to where you found the links with a “via” at the end of the tweet
- Tell me why you think the link is important to share – don’t share just for the sake of sharing
PS: This post started out by me complaining about this retweet which kinda sets the standard for craziest retweet ever written. Who wrote what and quotes who!?
Clay Shirky:
“RT @matthewburton RT @GlobalEESE “”"”"”"”Virtual presence = actual absence”"”"”"”"–Gen Jim Jones RT @pkedrosky Cool thing about listening to an economist expla” Link: @cshirky
"In the middle of what?"
I love @ev‘s and @biz‘s answers to the questions in this interview in The New York Times:
ME: I heard about a woman who tweeted her father’s funeral. Whatever happened to private pain?
EVAN: I have private pain every day.ME: If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on?
BIZ (dryly): In the middle of what?
via Daring Fireball.