I miss webrings. They were a great way to find new links, interesting ideas and people. Social media is an offshoot of webrings. Most of the webring software I used to know is gone. Swallowed up by marketing. The new webrings are different, lighter, and they tend to be personal.
I was peeling carrots and I asked my nephew to get me a kettle to put them into. He said it was a pot. I didn't really care what he wanted to call it. Just get it so I can make dinner. I was visiting at his house, his Mother's house. But he went on about it, correcting me.
In fact, I still don't know which is perfectly correct and I don't very much care. I will still, likely, say pot or kettle and mean the same thing. The word is trivial, the meaning was pretty clear.
But he was hung up on the nuance of pot versus kettle. He was not helping me peel carrots, potatoes or get dinner cooking. Which mattered more? I think he would have figured out the lack of importance in the nuance if he had no dinner.
But, a lot of people seem to get hung up on trivial things, like nuances these days.
I do think the word matters and getting it correct matters, but it depends on the circumstances. There are times when communication needs to be clear, when communication is very important and there are times when you just want something to boil the carrots in.
Starting from the email and its stylistic facets, chat, in which we focus also on the art of composing spartan shapes and colors in the standard IRC, the author probes the spontaneous, irreverent and relentless personal communication that found between restrictions techniques and tricks of its own random mode. In the following chapters we analyze the digital greetings (greetings, condolences), then moved to a short and intense history of ASCII Art and its roots in RTTY Art, the art of the teletype, with the additional restriction of ASCII to 5 bits (ie only upper case).
Brenda Danet from the Cyber Communication History Book
Brenda Danet is now deceased. There are no chances to find her online and ask her about her book. I would have liked to know if she ever tried ASCII or other text art herself.
In 20 years I think there will be a small flood of books about Internet and communications, the history. About there in time will be the 50 year mark for the Internet becoming a part of popular media. The Internet is older than that, but few people knew much about it until ISP's started cropping up and making it fairly easy for anyone with a computer to connect online.
The Internet (beyond the computer itself) has changed communication forever. But, as I see typewriters become obsolete, I wonder what will be next. I would not be surprised if the computer itself eventually went into the obsolete pile. But, I do wonder about screen size. From big screen TVs to the tiniest mobile devices... screen sizes don't get taken into account very often in communication. I don't count making websites mobile-friendly because that's a necessity due to the miniscule size. Do people really prefer a tiny screen? I can't imagine so - I don't!
It doesn't seem mobile is going anywhere though. How will reading everything from tiny screens change communications, more than it has so far? Will people start wearing magnifying glasses? If so, will that just give manufacturers a reason to make things even smaller? Over generations, if this keeps up, will our eyeballs or eye sight adapt to reading this way?
Note: The quoted text above comes from a review of Brenda Danet's book, on Neural.
Because I am fed up with sites which expect me to register for another site, like Disqus, before I can leave a comment I am no longer going to share links to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc for any site which I can not comment on.
I have not been blocked or banned from Disqus. I just do not want to register for an account. For years we have given our email and name to sites in order to comment. That was more than enough. Trusting sites to collect our email addresses and not sell them was much more than enough to ask when I only wanted to comment on a blog post. To ask, or expect more is too much!
Disqus allows guest comments. If the site owner chooses to enable the feature - you can leave a comment without having to login or register with Disqus. So, it is fully the fault of the site owner if people can not comment. The site owner uses Disqus to track people. They want to track everyone so they can't let people comment unless they become a number.
Well no more for me! I deleted my account at Disqus last year when I was fed up. Now I'm taking it a step farther and putting the blame right on site owners. So, any site which expects me to register in order to comment I will not be forwarding or sharing links on any of my accounts: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Scoop.it and etc.
#NoCommentNoShare
Keeping a site up and running isn't light work. Writing, scheduling, promoting, proofreading, maintaining, updating, replying, publishing... all of that takes time and energy. Bloggers get burnt out trying to keep up with it.
What can you do to avoid burning out while still being productive with fresh inspiration to go on creating more?
If all else fails, reconsider your topic. Maybe you just don't have a blog niche which really suits you? Make a list of the things you really do love to read about, find out about and above all - what do you like to DO? Chances are something you are actively participating in will be a much better topic than something you watch from the sidelines.
Write Something Different: Interview Troubleshooting - problems with solutions Profile someone or something Quiz or polls Personal stories Quotes Conversations Explain decisions Answer questions Thank someone Round ups Goals Update old posts Q & A Follow up Checklists Trends Controversial Live blogging - report on an event Life streaming - report on yourself Video posts Promotional - talk about your ebook, etc Contests Ask questions of your readers FAQ (Frequently asked questions) Top ten list Podcast Review Editorial Rant Critique Special reports Post in a series, linked together Cheat sheet Infographic Hand drawn post Web comic Art journal Jokes Webinar Repost a discussion held on Twitter Debate Curated links Collaboration (trade posts with another blogger). Historical Future predictions Shopping ideas How-to Seasonal On this day... Whatever happened to... Tutorial Images with minimal text Advice column Hypothetical (What if...) Satire Inspirational/ motivational News Definitions of words/ jargon Directory of links Join in on a meme, blog fair or other project
Stop writing everything like a standard blog post. Look at other formats. If you run WordPress make note of the formats available in the toolbar menu to the right.
Get out of your same old post rut and try something new.
Work on scheduling too. Put together a few posts ahead of time and schedule them to be posted in the days ahead. This way you can actually take a few days off from your daily blogging grind. Do something else. (Besides blog stuff - there is a whole world out there, offline).
Do you always write in the same place, at the same time, with the same tools? Why not make a change, something simple which will give you a fresh perspective, fresh scenery and people to watch.
I especially like writing in a coffee shop. I find a window seat and let myself procrastinate for awhile with a good latte. Once I stop trying to write it becomes easier to think of things to write about.
Another great discovery is the local transit system. For the cost of a few dollars I can spend an hour on the bus (it doesn't really matter where I'm going) and let my mind drift. I keep pens and paper in my purse or backpack and make notes with ideas as I get them.
Write outdoors too. Put yourself under the open sky with all sorts of room to breathe, relax and wander. Just being outside never fails to lighten my mood.
Unclutter your mind. It's funny how much easier it is for new thoughts to seep in once you have given them some space. Sleep (That thing you close your eyes for). People who keep blogs work for themselves, set their own hours and can have the most demanding boss. Themselves.
How many times have you stayed up late to proofread a post? How many times have you worked through lunch to put in time posting on Twitter? How many times have you not taken a day off in an entire week? What job has such poor hours, unless it is also someone self-employed?
Go to bed. Take a weekend off. Take a vacation and really stop blogging. Don't check email. Don't write a few lines to Facebook or Twitter. Don't do anything... except maybe jot down a note or two when you get a great idea you can work on tomorrow when you're done with your day off blogging.
Remember When all this Seemed Fun? I began blogging because I loved it.
In time that gets forgotten buried and lost. There are so many demands we put on ourselves. So many things others tell us we should do if we care about marketing, traffic, SEO, readers, comments, guest posts, advertising, monetizing and the list goes on. It's all pressure. A lot of it is just plain peer pressure.
Consider this... why do you read a blog (other than your own?) In some cases you may be looking for news and information and nothing more. But, even then, why do you choose one blog over another?
Something sparks your interest, beyond the text content. Most likely the blogs which get and keep interest from their readers are the blogs which have some spark of life, a sense of fun or at least of not being anti-fun, all work and a real chore.
Put fun back into your own blog and your work there.
Do you still love your blog topic? If not, what can you change about it to make it interesting and fun for you again?
Is there a new niche you would love to know more about yourself, something relevant to your topic? Something you just haven't taken the time to find out about or dive into?
A stale blog can't be fun to write. Bring something fresh to your blog and to your time and energy spent on it. Don't be afraid to boldly renovate and go forth in a new direction. Better to make progress in a new way than to burn yourself out and have nothing at all left to say and no real desire to say anything.