Rather than trudge through the rain this lunchtime to a nearby store that sells marvellous sausage rolls, I warmed up leftovers from the fridge, and plan to spend the rest of lunchtime emptying my head into the keyboard. A rare treat.
I am my own worst enemy when it comes to working through lunch. Quite often I forget to eat entirely - then wonder why I feel so drained later in the day. Those are the times when I end up calling on the marvellous sausage roll shop.
This week feels long. I’m not sure why. Maybe because the project I have been consumed by for the last several months is starting to slow. Rather than a headless sprint towards an unknown destination, we can now see the finish line - tantalisingly dangling in front of us like a carrot on a stick.
Thoughts are already turning to what might be next, rather than “How the hell are we going to do this?”
In-between everything else this week I’ve been tinkering with some of the new(er) social platforms on the internet - trying them for size - walking up and down in their shoes to see which fits best.
I can’t help feeling that every social platform that reaches a certain tipping point in terms of popularity seems to attract the same army of brands, influencers, spammers and trolls. It would seem there are a great many people out there - among the masses that cross paths on the social internet’s shipping lanes - whose life’s mission is to berate, criticise, or tear down anything and everything contributed by anybody about anything. Quite the wide remit, I’m sure you’ll agree.
I use the word “seem” very carefully. The thing about the “social internet” - or more accurately the “algorithmic timeline” is that content or messaging that is interacted with rises to the top. A tiny minority of trolls can bring an issue into existence by the sheer force of their will (or rather, the inordinate time they are willing to expend posting critical, hateful, or objectionable commentary on anything and everything they possibly can).
You need look no further than “cancel culture” or certain political parties to see that some have figured out how to play the game - how to elevate non-stories in order to further their aims - however misguided, ignorant, or idiotic.
Anyway.
Social networks.
I thought I might offer my take on what I’ve found so far.
Threads - built by Meta (read: Facebook) - started out as an opportunistic land-grab when the exodus from “X” began. Facebook built Threads a long time ago, and it failed. This time it seems to have stuck the landing, and has grown like a weed - taking advantage of existing Instagram accounts to give people somewhere to talk, rather than just flex their gym or holiday photos.
Threads new-found popularity has begun to attract brands, marketers, bot networks and trolls - who are steadily ruining it in the same way that they ruin everything.
Perhaps the most unexpectedly entertaining facet of Threads just recently has been the arrival of the final cohorts of users from “X”, who complain every day that they can’t attract enough attention, that the platform doesn’t work they way they want it to, that not enough people are reading what they post, and perhaps most entertainingly - that everybody should share who to block, so they might instruct what everybody should read, who they should follow and so on - so they might surround themselves with the same narrow concordant feedback loop they had carefully curated elsewhere.
Bluesky - built by the original founders of Twitter - was an internal Twitter project - a holistic re-imaging of what a social network should be - a next generation evolution that Twitter itself might one day become a part of. Thankfully Bluesky was spun-off into an independent entity some time before Elon acquired Twitter and destroyed it. Bluesky was essentially Twitter’s crown jewels.
Imagine Twitter, but with control over the algorithmic timeline - allowing you to see suggested content, popular content, only posts from those you follow, only popular posts from those you follow, and so on. To be able to create lists, share lists, filter out re-posts, not see (or see) adult content, and so on.
At some point soon Meta will pull the trigger on advertising in Threads, and the game will be over (accompanied by an angry mob no doubt complaining about a platform they don’t pay for). It will be interesting to see how Bluesky monetise, because after all - there’s no such thing as a free lunch. There are rumours of Bluesky going the paid subscription route. Imagine that - a paid-for social network with no advertisers, and no advertising.
My lunch is at an end. Back to the pixel mines for me.
Perhaps a coffee first.
p.s. I’m @jonbeckett at both Threads and Bluesky.