🔗 WWW
There are a lot of links out to different parts of the web on this site. I try to mark them all so they get listed here.
As the hype around BlueSky builds, I am reminded of the hype that surrounded Clubhouse. Looks like that’s what Charles has been thinking.
Velvet rope: it tells you that the people who got past it are special. Unlike you.
💬 Charles Arthur
My last 🔗 Travels Without Charley makes for a short, thoughtful read.
Thinking Allowed
This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.- More about People First
- Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)
Am I missing a step with webmentions?
🔗 A recent post on People First was syndicated to Micro Blog.
I replied to that post in MicroBlog.
And it seems to be approved
So, shouldn’t it appear here?
🔗 Clubhouse is laying off more than half of its workforce - The Verge
Quel surprise … I wrote this when I was still on the wait list … and once in I even guested on a couple … my one word summary of the experiences, the site, the conversations, the quality … ‘crap’.
It is May … I am sitting in LA, with the heating on, while outside it is pouring with rain. This while I read 🔗 How El Niño could affect U.S. weather. (TL;DR .. if you thought it has been hot recently … you ain’t seen nothing yet.)
🔗 2023 Marketing Technology Landscape: 11,038 Solutions
… this is getting silly.
🔗 The Democrats Unveil a Secret Weapon on the Debt Ceiling.
I’m not am sure that I don’t fully understand this … but definitely intrigued enough to watch how it pans out.
After years of calling CNN “fake news,” Donald Trump has agreed to appear on the network for a town hall. His campaign says it wants to hit reset on its relationship with the channel now that it’s under new management.
Bollocks. Licht has steadily and systematically moving CNN towards ‘the new center’ since he arrived. This will be a total softball.
Meanwhile … who really cares? CNN peaks at around half a million for its biggest star (Anderson Cooper).
🪦Et tu Gordon. I didn’t believe it when I read it .. but yes it is true. 84 … not a bad run.
Thank-you for the 🎵music.
If you are reading this post on my site, you will see that this link is rendered as an embedded video at the bottom of the post. (THANKYOU @rknightuk]. It will render just fine - unless the video owner wants you to watch it over on YouTube (and to be fair - there are very good reasons for that). If that happens, click on the link above and you will be taken to YouTube. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it. That said - on rare occasions, it might actually be broken. If it is - sorry about that - try sending me an email and I will check if I made an error.
🔗 ‘They can survive just fine’: Bernie Sanders says income over $1bn should be taxed at 100%
You go Bernie.
… the problem is that nobody earns ‘income’ over $1Billion … isn’t that the real problem?
🔗 Karl Lagerfeld had odious views. We shouldn’t be putting him on a pedestal.
Filed in my bucket of things that I don’t pay attention to, so not aware of the claims. That said, is this another case of judgement of historical behavior because the modern context has changed? If so … is that right?
Discuss.
What if Amazon offered used readers, in bulk, to people in states that are banning books, and in school districts that are limiting what kids can read? What if it offered special deals on banned books, and brought titles to young people some of their “betters” are forbidding for them, to encourage reading?
💬 Dana Blankenhorn
💬 Hate Speech On Core Intuition
🔗 Just finished listening to the latest Core Intuition.
At one point in the conversation @manton and @danielpunkass were talking about community guidelines, social norms et al. Hate speech on Bluesky was specifically brought up. Apparently they have a way to add tags to posts so that posts can be marked as ‘hatespeech’, ‘not safe for work’, etc.
Sounded a pretty neat solution to me - but apparently someone over on @mastodon suggested that this meant BlueSky was allowing hate speech.
Have to say, one of the common threads running through a lot of Mastodians I observe is the ‘superior’, ‘better than thou’, ‘my way or the highway’ attitude … even down to comments like ‘if you don’t ‘alt text’ your images - I will unfollow you'.1
But, ‘allowing’ hate speech? There is no agreement what constitutes hate speech, so I guess this individual is judge and jury? Don’t get me wrong … I think most ‘decent people’ can bucket up the obvious extremes … it’s when it gets to the grey areas it becomes difficult. Like art - we can’t define it - we just ‘know it when we see it’.
I was reminded of a well used amorphism
“One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”
This also ties into something I wrote just yesterday
1] I wonder if Mastodon is filling up with ‘snowflakes’. (Back when my mum was alive she used to rail on ‘do gooders’ … a term that seems to have fallen out of use these days - but the sentiment remain in these ‘behavioural vigilantes’.
2] I wonder whether the meek have inherited the earth … at least in terms of public discourse?
3] Has the pendulum swung too far? Satire and parody has lost meaning and too many people are cancelling themselves for fear of public admonishment and worse - retribution from the herd.
What do you think?
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Too late - I have already unfollowed you. (Not that I disagree with the need to do it - and I try - but it doesn’t always happen and life is too short.) ↩︎
Funny - I am writing my next newsletter and 🔗 this is one of the top of mind issues that I am covering off in it. Might add it as a link in the final newsletter.
FINALLY - 🔗 The backfill is completed.
If you have been following along, you will know that I am a big fan of Lockhead and Category Design. But on this one - I totally disagree. It’s only 15 minutes - less if you remove the top and tail. For example - jump right in at 1’ 56” and you can stop at 12’ 50# - so what 11 minutes?
🔗 Elon Musk’s New Category Design For Twitter: Will it work? - Lochhead on Marketing
I do agree that Musk is up to something. BUT
The thesis of Category Pirates lands on how this Blue Checkmark fiasco is the start of ‘great thinking … marketing even … from Musk … in that this is ‘the first time we have seen an attempt to deliver a paid for social platform at scale’. Me - no idea if that is true, BUT riffing on ‘Theodore’ for a moment … people are on Twitter not because they want a blue checkmark - but rather to ‘say and write stuff and have it pushed out to the unsuspecting world’.
I don’t disagree that Musk is up to something as he works through the monetisation question - BUT - the idea of faffing around with the check mark is the result of some great marketing mind is nuts. The idea that he is in the process of creating an entirely new category is nuts. Trying maybe - but not yet creating,