What Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram did to blogging — Spotify and Apple Podcasts are attempting to do to Podcasts.
Tag: Colin Devroe
If you have any desire at all to have a blog and have ever thought that any of the above bad reasons should stop you – please reconsider and start blogging
Here are the main points of my personal data policy as it stands today:
- Never share my current location publicly. I’m going to be certain my habits do not share my current location in a public way. I’m also going to audit any app or service that attempts to use my location data to be certain it does not share my current location publicly.
- Download and remove all of my data from services that I haven’t used in over a year. I’ve got quiet an online trail that I’ve blazed over the last several decades. While I’m nostalgic for many of these services, and I hate dead URLs, I think it is best if I remove any of that data if I’m no longer using the service.
- Evaluate each app on my mobile devices that use location data and read their privacy policies. In other words, make a more informed decision about what apps I share my location data with.
- Delete any app that I do not use on my mobile devices that could use location or audio data. Believe it or not, many of the small utility apps that exist for free (like, doing fun image editing) have tons of third-party ad network code in them. I have dozens of these but I rarely use them.
I really like your approach Colin. I must admit that I have become more mindful of late, however I have a lot of work to do in making some of my practices more rigid.
It’s been a long and winding road for Tumblr, the blogging site that launched a thousand writing careers. It sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013, then withered as Yahoo sold itself to AOL, AOL sold itself to Verizon, and Verizon realized it was a phone company after all. Through all that, the site’s fierce community hung on: it’s still Taylor Swift’s go-to social media platform, and fandoms of all kinds have homes there.
Verizon sold Tumblr for a reported $3 million this week, a far cry from the billion-dollar valuation it once had. But to Verizon’s credit, it chose to sell Tumblr to Automattic, the company behind WordPress, the publishing platform that runs some 34 percent of the world’s websites. Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg thinks the future of Tumblr is bright. He wants the platform to bring back the best of old-school blogging, reinvented for mobile and connected to Tumblr’s still-vibrant community, and he’s retaining all 200 Tumblr employees to build that future. It’s the most exciting vision for Tumblr in years.
Matt joined Verge reporter Julia Alexander and me on a special Vergecast interview episode to chat about the deal, how it came together, what Automattic’s plans for Tumblr look like, and whether Tumblr might become an open-source project, like WordPress itself. (“That would be pretty cool,” said Matt.)
Interesting discussion about the open future of Tumblr.
Matt Mullenweg discusses the transition to WordPress and the hope for alternative to today’s social platforms. I wonder what possibilities this might provide in regards to the IndieWeb? I also wonder how the possible increase of ads might impact the platform.
Colin Devroe suggests that Tumblr provides a new entry point for Automattic users, therefore provide solutions from ideas and full commerce.
If a site only works in Chrome it isn’t a web site it is a Chrome site.
At least with the option of webmentions there is the possibility of being notified, even if you do not have an explicit identity in Micro.Blog. There is not even the possibility of knowing what conversations you are a part of in spaces like Facebook.
Facebook announcing something: “We are connecting people all over the world.” My interpretation: “Our massive drones are really to collect even more information about people than we already collect and sell to that information to people we say we won’t sell information to. Oh, and to misinform people about just about every topic possible.”
I’m curious what particular lines you’ve changed in the plugin and how as I’d love to have this behavior instead of the less useful links to the profiles that the plugin typically gives.
I too would be interested in linking to post in mentions Colin.
There are several single posts in my blog’s archive that get well over 1,000 hits per month. I wish all of these people became subscribers or said just hello.
I remember when software didn’t require an internet connection.
It is true that many assume that programmers know so much more than many of us do. There may be a few superheros out there that have the time and interest in learning “everything” but I can tell you in 25 years I’ve never met one. Even the most brilliant minds in our field usually have a focus.
Coming from the perspective of implementation, this is something I have had to learn moving into the world of development. I presumed that those around me had all the answers. What I learnt fast is that they simply had the ability to put two and two together quicker than me. The challenge I have had to face is the feeling that someone does know the implications when making a decision, which is not always guaranteed.
I see that Google is killing the Inbox app and people are livid. People, stop being angry at Google for killing their services. They make money on Adwords, now some on Cloud Services, but that’s about it. Everything else is on the chopping block.
I’ve been fiddling with Mastodon (to the tune of over 500 toots). I’ve also been reading up on the history of the service a lot over the last few weeks. Here are some general observations that I’ve made along with a few helpful links.
It will never happen, but imagine a world where “everyone” that uses Twitter just posted to their own blog? What a world that would be! I do, however, see another fairly large exodus happening. It won’t hurt Twitter one iota.