Tag: Twitter

Read Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia by Cory DoctorowCory Doctorow (well.com)
Metadata is "data about data" -- information like keywords, page-length, title, word-count, abstract, location, SKU, ISBN, and so on. Explicit, human-generated metadata has enjoyed recent trendiness, especially in the world of XML. A typical scenario goes like this: a number of suppliers get together and agree on a metadata standard -- a Document Type Definition or scheme -- for a given subject area, say washing machines. They agree to a common vocabulary for describing washing machines: size, capacity, energy consumption, water consumption, price. They create machine-readable databases of their inventory, which are available in whole or part to search agents and other databases, so that a consumer can enter the parameters of the washing machine he's seeking and query multiple sites simultaneously for an exhaustive list of the available washing machines that meet his criteria.
Doctorow apparently drew out the roadmap for Twitter, democracy, and the future of society in 2001.

If everyone would subscribe to such a system and create good metadata for the purposes of describing their goods, services and information, it would be a trivial matter to search the Internet for highly qualified, context-sensitive results: a fan could find all the downloadable music in a given genre, a manufacturer could efficiently discover suppliers, travelers could easily choose a hotel room for an upcoming trip.
A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be a utopia. It’s also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. ❧

Apparently this also now applies to politics and democracy too.
Annotated on August 06, 2020 at 09:12AM

When poisoning the well confers benefits to the poisoners, the meta-waters get awfully toxic in short order. ❧

If we look at Twitter as a worldwide annotation tool which is generating metadata on a much tinier subset of primary documents (some of which are not truthful themselves), this seems to bear out in that setting as well.

ref: Kalir & Garcia in Annotation
Annotated on August 06, 2020 at 09:17AM

Schemas aren’t neutral ❧

This section highlights why relying on algorithmic feeds in social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can be toxic. Your feed is full of what they think you’ll like and click on instead of giving you the choice.
Annotated on August 06, 2020 at 09:23AM

It’s wishful thinking to believe that a group of people competing to advance their agendas will be universally pleased with any hierarchy of knowledge. The best that we can hope for is a detente in which everyone is equally miserable. ❧

The fate of true democracies.
Annotated on August 06, 2020 at 09:33AM

↬ Jeremy Keith Replying to a tweet from @hdv ()

Replied to a tweet by Aram Zucker-ScharffAram Zucker-Scharff (Twitter)
to the rescue. There are a few great options for this. None of which should require you to write any code! 

One of my favorite is Kevin Marks’ Noter Live (open source) which is great for live tweeting and creating long threads quickly, especially at conferences. When you’re done, it’s kept a record of everything which you can quickly cut/paste as HTML into your website for an instant archive post.

Another option if your website supports the Micropub spec (perhaps with a plugin?) ThreadReaderApp recently added support to let you unroll the thread and you can go to your account and authenticate to your website and post the thread with one click.

I’ll also note that WordPress’ Gutenberg just added the ability to unroll threads to websites built with it as well. 

In addition to general public use, these could actually be the backbone of an interesting journalistic live notebook for reporters in the field who could quickly compile/archive their threads for expanded articles later on.

Liked a tweet (Twitter)
Great to see a conference realize that Twitter can be toxic and coming up with an interesting solution for it. 
Read Unroll Your Twitter Threads Into WordPress by Gary Gary (The WordPress.com Blog)
Turn your recent Twitter thread into your next blog post.
I’m curious if they were following the recent functionality added by ThreadReaderApp using Micropub? I’m guessing the fact that they used the verb “unroll” means they were at least aware of it as a functionality.
Read On the Banks of a Shouty River by Joe JohnstonJoe Johnston (taskboy.com)
Slow thinking. I am deracinating myself from Twitter to regain my slow thinking. Slow thinking is that activity of cognition which strives toward a goal, but indulges in seeming off-ramps and non-sequiturs. It is a desultory journey that stubbornly refuses to be rushed. Yet, patiently following one ...
Well said!
Read Chuck Woolery says 'everyone is lying' about coronavirus, then reveals son's diagnosis (NBC News)
"To further clarify and add perspective, Covid-19 is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus," Woolery tweeted Monday.
Oh the irony of life. Interesting to note that he left the platform over it.
Replied to thread
Another option, though without Micropub (yet!), is Kevin Marks‘ NoterLive tool. It’ll let you create a thread and then (manually) copy over the rich data into your website pretty quickly. I love it especially for conferences.
Replied to a tweet by James Van Dyne (Twitter)
I do that! Try Micropub plugin + Syndication Links plugin + Quill or any of the other micropub clients that support posting notes and syndication endpoints.

Reach out if you need help to get it set up.

If you want to go crazy and thread your Twitter conversations, that’s possible too…

Read Thread about Twitter Click tracking by @Chronotope by Aram Zucker-Scharff (Twitter / ThreadReaderApp)
 
Some interesting and fascinating thoughts here.

I would like to have some of the data here for how I found things and came to things, but I’m not such a fan of Twitter having and tracking it all on my behalf. This stinks of yet another reason for them to be collecting data on me and what I’m reading.

Thread Reader and Micropub for PressEdConf

In March I wrote about Participating in PressEdConf20 directly from WordPress.

While using that method for publishing is still my preference for owning the content first and syndicating it to Twitter, there’s another method that many educators might find simpler. ThreadReaderApp now has beta support for the Micropub Spec so you can publish Twitter threads directly to your blog.

This means that participants can write their threads directly on Twitter and reverse syndicate them to their websites if they support the Micropub spec.

For PressEdConf participants who have WordPress.org based sites (or .com sites with a subscription that supports plugins), this should be relatively easy since there’s a Micropub plugin for WordPress.

Download the plugin, activate it, write your Twitter thread, and have Thread Reader unroll it. Then authentic Thread Reader to your website at https://threadreaderapp.com/account/micropub and click the publish button on the thread you want to copy to your site.

This functionality in Thread Reader will also work for any other blogging platform or CMS that has either native or plugin support for Micropub. This includes platforms like Drupal, Grav, WithKnown, and many others including several static site generators.

Once things are set up, it’s pretty straightforward. You can read about my first experience (linked above) for more details.

If you have prior unrolled Twitter threads in your Thread Reader account you can use them as test cases before the next PressEdConf.

 

 

LikeWar – The Weaponization of Social Media

Read LikeWar (LikeWar)
Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away. Through the weaponization of social media, the internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the internet. Terrorists livestream th...
An interesting looking book, but I’m worried that it’s the sort of thing I’d start reading only to realize I’ve read all the component pieces of it in other places.