Edd, thanks for this great review. I hope people really understand the spirit of what we're trying to do with Identi.ca. It's an exciting project, and I hope that people give it the chance to mature and grow as rapidly as I think it will.
Great point about the openness of data. I hadn't covered that in my post.
Dan
foo
· 1 year ago
All well and good, but...
Why is microblogging important?
Why is it better than IRC/XMPP/proprietary IM protocols?
I'd really like to see these things explained (in a new blog post), cus I don't get it.
Jim Hughes
· 1 year ago
I *think* the important differentiator with micro-blogging is the mismatches, the people who listen to you aren't the people you listen to. so there's a flow of information via and around you to elsewhere.
A closed-circle irc channel or Jabber conference room doesn't have this asymmetry. I think it's important, I might be wrong though.
gwalter
· 1 year ago
I don't experience much asymmetry in my Twitter network, as far as followers to followees goes. However, I do experience asymmetry in memes and occupations. While IRC has primarily been a techies venue, chatrooms and forums don't allow me, the user, control of who I "listen" to, and regular IM requires real-time collaboration and cannot scale the way a microblogging site can.
Sheegeek @corvida, from RWW, put it very well in a recent blog post. Twitter, and now identica, allow for conversation hopping. Given the range of personalities, memes, and career fields represented, it often feels like walking through the lobby of a large hotel lobby during a multi-disciplinary conference. Seeing old friends, catching up with colleagues, and making new friends along the way.
Here's hoping that identica can scale and that lobby grows.
Dave Cridland
· 1 year ago
Microblogging isn't important, but that belies the point. It's also not "better" than IRC, or XMPP - I've argued that microblogging and XMPP should converge for some time, and I think that they probably will.
But then, I've also argued that microblogging is simply the latest incarnation of the telnet talkers of old - and those were powerful communities, too. These are not "change the world" technologies, and anyone arguing that is probably somewhat deluded - but they are pleasant, and occasionally useful.
Dave.
exador23
· 1 year ago
I actually think micro-blogging ~is~ revolutionary. It is a brand new "sixth sense" of sorts.
Each of us sees/feels/experiences a small piece of the world, accompanied in most people by a robust internal chatter. It is that internal chatter that forms the basis of our daily decisions.
Micro-blogging connects all these little sensed pieces of experience in near real-time. The important elements of our internal dialogue "bubble up" as posts, and give a sense of the world as each of us experiences it. Yes, much of it is inane, just as much of our internal dialogue is. But it gives us a human sense of others and their problems. I follow a conservative representative, progressive feminine bloggers, conspiracy nuts, a farmer in Iowa, and people in India, Australia, the Netherlands... I could go on. My world is richer for it, but more importantly, tolerance, understanding, & even compassion for those ~thought~ to be different is growing (if ever so subtly.)
Most of the time, this idle chatter is about simple, perhaps unimportant things, and it's constrained to a relatively small network. But when something important (or really interesting) happens, it bubbles up, then ripples through networks so fast that if, say, a major earthquake happens or a journalist is arrested, the whole network can learn of it in a matter of minutes. How is that not revolutionary? When have we ever had a technology/protocol able to achieve that?
Prior technologies have allowed that only for limited numbers of people, and so we've needed to have representatives to fulfill the global sensing, communication, & decision-making tasks of the world. Governments will never go away, but now we have access to more information, more quickly than our leaders. And we can talk about that information ourselves, and large numbers of people can decide to do what they can to fix the problem or convince others to. (Just like with Open Source Software)
Like any tool, it comes down to how you wield it. So perhaps I should rephrase the thesis: Micro-blogging has the ~potential~ to be every bit as significant as the printing press (I'm sure it also had nay-sayers).
I'm hyper-excited about identi.ca because it brings a missing ingredient to the mix: Complaining gets you nowhere. If you aren't happy with something, FIX IT! Write a script like http://identi.ca/4fthawaiian. Host the Laconica software on your server. Write some code, or convince someone who can that it's for the greater good. And be patient. If YOU can't fix it today, why should THEY? Open Source + Micro-blogging = there is no more "they." It's you and I. If WE care about it and if WE have the skills, then WE can fix our problems quicker, better, and more humanely than any centralized hierarchy. That's why Twitter should be shaking in their boots.
That's a brilliant summing up... Really. I think you limned the scene quite vividly. So who the hell are you, exador23? "Hippy Steve"? "...pattern literate human being"? I'm totally intrigued!
exador23
· 1 year ago
sorry for the delay in getting back to you. thanks! egg-chair philosopher sums it up best (remember those?) here's an out-of-date bio: http://ur1.ca/58
out of date because I no longer live in the Argosy, and the landscaping biz has been a little sporadic. pattern literacy is a permaculture concept http://patternliteracy.com/principles.html
where are you located?
oriste
· 1 year ago
It's Prodromou (with OU at the end)
Edd Dumbill
· 1 year ago
Fixed, thanks!
gwalter
· 1 year ago
Nice post explaining the tech stuff, in an understandable way for non-techies, and helping me/us to see why identi.ca is a winner. I knew it was a winner from a user's standpoint. We like Twitter. We like the simplicity, the ease of use, and the community of Twitter. But the supposed Twitter-killers (eg; Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk <choke>, and others) added too many features to make it an effective real time community conversation.
As soon as I saw the interface - I said, "This is it. This is what I've been waiting for."
Good post and good job @evan!
Tyler
· 1 year ago
do you have gmail/jabber?
gwalter
· 1 year ago
Yes I do - I sent you an invite last night.
rabble
· 1 year ago
The CC license is not optional. If you refuse to click the release all of my tweets under a cc license the system refuses to give you an account. That's such the wrong way to go about things i'm not sure where to start.
Earle Martin
· 1 year ago
That's called making a stand for one believes in. You're entitled not to agree with it, and subsequently not use the service. But you're not entitled to complain about it being "wrong". Using someone else's (free) service is a privilege, granted by them to you - not a right. If you don't like how they choose to operate, go elsewhere.
Edd Dumbill
· 1 year ago
Seems to me it's the same principle as using GPL software. In which case, we may remain ideologically irreconcilable.
"Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at identi.ca."
Well, that was fun while it lasted.
Edd Dumbill
· 1 year ago
Try again a bit later. The attention spike has meant Evan's moving servers around, with some DNS snags in the process.
Leo
· 1 year ago
[...]Si tratta dell’articolo Why Identi.ca is important di Edd, che ha spiegato il perché secondo lui Identi.ca è un servizio “degno di nota”. Ve ne consiglio una lettura, è davvero interessante.[...]
Earle Martin
· 1 year ago
(duplicate comment removed)
Luc
· 1 year ago
Yeah I'm enjoying identi.ca and look forward to seeing how it develops! People seem to be finding it useful enough to sign up that's for sure! I can't believe how many people are talking about it already. We've been quick to add it to the list of networks we support on numixi.com after seeing its popularity soar so quickly!
Andy C
· 1 year ago
Great post, Edd. At last someone who sees beyond the Twitter clone headline.
I now have a local Laconica install running on Bluehost which would have been slightly difficult with Twitter/Jaiku/Pownce.
Yes - it needs more functionality but it's OpenSource so 'patches welcome' :-)
Yes - it will hit teething problems but it is a really interesting development.
Couldn't have said it better. All the reasons anyone could ever need are right here. Most of all I've been amazed at the pace of development. Evan is a machine.
FloridaHealthInsuranceQuotes
· 11 months ago
I sometimes wonder why TinyURL/snurl/whoever hasn’t used their data to give us indices of the most social URLs that day, etc. It’s the kind of thing O’Reilly has been looking for for ages.part of the identi.ca conglomerate is an open url shortener, http://ur1.ca which plans to make that data available… so one hopes that it’ll go in the direction you suggest.
blue
· 1 year ago
It's failing just like Twitter.
Edd Dumbill
· 1 year ago
Sorry, that's just not helpful. Take a look at what I wrote, what it means. Identi.ca's slow right now because a one-man company is funding and scaling EC2 instances from his own pocket, and going without sleep to do it since a bunch of Twitter-refugees jumped on the site over the last 24 hours.
This is the kind of transparency we've ~Begged for~... begging that resulted in ~blogs~ of meaningless talk about load balancers and database failures. That's politician-speak. Here's a man who stayed up all night tweaking things, responding to questions, and letting everyone know what he was doing.... You know, the PURPOSE of micro-blogging.
"What are you doing?" It's the question that lured me to Twitter. Ironically it's the question we've been asking of Twitter for aeons. and we're still waiting for an answer. To me, it looks like @evan has an answer, and has given you the software to create your own answer if you don't like his.
@evan makes full use of the service he's created and ~gifted~ to the world through Open Source. Take a look at @Ev's "with others" Twitter timeline http://twitter.com/ev *** and compare it to @evan's http://hewitt.controlezvous.ca/evan/all. Up to date information about what he's doing! sometimes even why, and what to expect. That's decidedly NOT "just like twitter" - that's working towards "winning" by allowing every user to contribute and be a part of a collective WIN.
My money is on ~social~ venture capital investments in identi.ca FTW. Money alone isn't going to unbeach a bloated fail whale.
The journey is more important than the destination - it's where the course corrections happen.
***Oh right, they took that feature away - I guess insight into what kinds of information a person is swimming in is of no use. Who would want to know that before deciding to follow? Who would find "with others" a great way to discover new people to add to your social network? Who would want to see what might have triggered that strange post from a friend or see the full context of a conversation?
All Comments
Excellent post. In a moment of synchronicity I wrote something along the same lines last night: http://www.disruptiveconversations.com/2008/07/...
And yes, I'm following you on identi.ca.
Great point about the openness of data. I hadn't covered that in my post.
Dan
Why is microblogging important?
Why is it better than IRC/XMPP/proprietary IM protocols?
I'd really like to see these things explained (in a new blog post), cus I don't get it.
A closed-circle irc channel or Jabber conference room doesn't have this asymmetry. I think it's important, I might be wrong though.
Sheegeek @corvida, from RWW, put it very well in a recent blog post. Twitter, and now identica, allow for conversation hopping. Given the range of personalities, memes, and career fields represented, it often feels like walking through the lobby of a large hotel lobby during a multi-disciplinary conference. Seeing old friends, catching up with colleagues, and making new friends along the way.
Here's hoping that identica can scale and that lobby grows.
But then, I've also argued that microblogging is simply the latest incarnation of the telnet talkers of old - and those were powerful communities, too. These are not "change the world" technologies, and anyone arguing that is probably somewhat deluded - but they are pleasant, and occasionally useful.
Dave.
Each of us sees/feels/experiences a small piece of the world, accompanied in most people by a robust internal chatter. It is that internal chatter that forms the basis of our daily decisions.
Micro-blogging connects all these little sensed pieces of experience in near real-time. The important elements of our internal dialogue "bubble up" as posts, and give a sense of the world as each of us experiences it. Yes, much of it is inane, just as much of our internal dialogue is. But it gives us a human sense of others and their problems. I follow a conservative representative, progressive feminine bloggers, conspiracy nuts, a farmer in Iowa, and people in India, Australia, the Netherlands... I could go on. My world is richer for it, but more importantly, tolerance, understanding, & even compassion for those ~thought~ to be different is growing (if ever so subtly.)
Most of the time, this idle chatter is about simple, perhaps unimportant things, and it's constrained to a relatively small network. But when something important (or really interesting) happens, it bubbles up, then ripples through networks so fast that if, say, a major earthquake happens or a journalist is arrested, the whole network can learn of it in a matter of minutes. How is that not revolutionary? When have we ever had a technology/protocol able to achieve that?
Prior technologies have allowed that only for limited numbers of people, and so we've needed to have representatives to fulfill the global sensing, communication, & decision-making tasks of the world. Governments will never go away, but now we have access to more information, more quickly than our leaders. And we can talk about that information ourselves, and large numbers of people can decide to do what they can to fix the problem or convince others to. (Just like with Open Source Software)
Like any tool, it comes down to how you wield it. So perhaps I should rephrase the thesis: Micro-blogging has the ~potential~ to be every bit as significant as the printing press (I'm sure it also had nay-sayers).
I'm hyper-excited about identi.ca because it brings a missing ingredient to the mix: Complaining gets you nowhere. If you aren't happy with something, FIX IT! Write a script like http://identi.ca/4fthawaiian. Host the Laconica software on your server. Write some code, or convince someone who can that it's for the greater good. And be patient. If YOU can't fix it today, why should THEY? Open Source + Micro-blogging = there is no more "they." It's you and I. If WE care about it and if WE have the skills, then WE can fix our problems quicker, better, and more humanely than any centralized hierarchy. That's why Twitter should be shaking in their boots.
Peace,
http://identi.ca/exador23
global identican
"The medium is the message" - Marshall McLuhan
out of date because I no longer live in the Argosy, and the landscaping biz has been a little sporadic. pattern literacy is a permaculture concept http://patternliteracy.com/principles.html
where are you located?
As soon as I saw the interface - I said, "This is it. This is what I've been waiting for."
Good post and good job @evan!
Also, see the bug list. There's enlightening explanation at http://greyowl.controlezvous.ca/PITS/00068
Well, that was fun while it lasted.
I now have a local Laconica install running on Bluehost which would have been slightly difficult with Twitter/Jaiku/Pownce.
Yes - it needs more functionality but it's OpenSource so 'patches welcome' :-)
Yes - it will hit teething problems but it is a really interesting development.
I would rather use http://meemi.com (or http://khaces.com ) to replace the void of twitter.
Or http://kwippy.com (but this one is still in invite only modus).
http://twoorl.com and http://yonkly.com are two other possibilities...
Pieter Jansegers
http://microblogs.ning.com
Most of all I've been amazed at the pace of development. Evan is a machine.
This is the kind of transparency we've ~Begged for~... begging that resulted in ~blogs~ of meaningless talk about load balancers and database failures. That's politician-speak. Here's a man who stayed up all night tweaking things, responding to questions, and letting everyone know what he was doing.... You know, the PURPOSE of micro-blogging.
"What are you doing?" It's the question that lured me to Twitter. Ironically it's the question we've been asking of Twitter for aeons. and we're still waiting for an answer. To me, it looks like @evan has an answer, and has given you the software to create your own answer if you don't like his.
@evan makes full use of the service he's created and ~gifted~ to the world through Open Source. Take a look at @Ev's "with others" Twitter timeline http://twitter.com/ev *** and compare it to @evan's http://hewitt.controlezvous.ca/evan/all. Up to date information about what he's doing! sometimes even why, and what to expect. That's decidedly NOT "just like twitter" - that's working towards "winning" by allowing every user to contribute and be a part of a collective WIN.
My money is on ~social~ venture capital investments in identi.ca FTW.
Money alone isn't going to unbeach a bloated fail whale.
peace,
http://identi.ca/exador23
The journey is more important than the destination - it's where the course corrections happen.
***Oh right, they took that feature away - I guess insight into what kinds of information a person is swimming in is of no use. Who would want to know that before deciding to follow? Who would find "with others" a great way to discover new people to add to your social network? Who would want to see what might have triggered that strange post from a friend or see the full context of a conversation?