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League of Inveterate Poets

The out-of-context contextuality of a foolish sage

It’s All in How You Ask



By on March 13, 2009

2009-03-13_2218“What’s on your mind?”

That one little question signals the recognition of a sea change in the social media world.

This past week Facebook rolled out another Facelift of the homepage seen by its subscribers. Among the many flashier changes, it would be easy to miss the one I think is most significant. To prompt a user to update her status, Facebook used to ask “What are you doing?” That has now changed to “What’s on your mind?”

I see this as the Bar Mitzvah of social media; its coming of age announcement. It signifies a crossing from the merely entertaining to the truly stimulating.

The blogosphere made this transition some time ago. When blogging first caught on with the masses, most blogs were little more than “dear diary” opened to the public (with all-too-often embarrassing results). The news bloggers changed all that, demonstrating that blogs could be on the frontlines of information communication. Soon the majority of well-read blogs were those providing significant content and information, not just “what I had for breakfast this morning.” Of course, I am not implying that all blogs made this transformation, but it was definitely the trend in those with any longevity of readership.

In this fast-paced world, some are already proclaiming the death of blogs as Facebook and now Twitter accelerate in popularity. It could be said that blogs are to newspapers what Twitter/Facebook are to blogs: an even faster, more as-it-happens way to spread information. Just as was the case with blogs only a few years ago, many are noting that Twitter has now become the first place you’re likely to find breaking news. Example: the first pictures of the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River this past January were posted on Twitter, just minutes after the plane hit the water.

Sites like Twitter and Facebook are providing more than just the fastest breaking news, though. They are also becoming the go-to destinations for any kind of information, now possibly even outstripping the formerly-omnipotent Google. I recently installed a Greasemonkey script that displays relevant “tweets” from Twitter at the top of any of my google searches, and more and more I’m going to their links first. Just today I hit a snag working on a Drupal CMS-based web site. I posted my question on Twitter, and in five minutes I had tips from seven different Drupal gurus.

Not so long ago it was fashionable to dismiss Twitter’s and Facebook’s “What are you doing?” It was easy to mock your friends for being on sites where they could discover that their college roommate just found a box of Kraft Macaroni ‘n’ Cheese he’d forgotten he had. But when the question becomes “What’s on your mind?” — new worlds are created.

Category: It`s All About Me
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Comments

  • http://www.withinwithout.org Lara

    I couldn’t agree more. I wish twitter itself would make a similar change in its verbiage.. . (and also wish FB had stuck with the livefeed option… I miss that). :)

  • http://www.withinwithout.org Lara

    I couldn’t agree more. I wish twitter itself would make a similar change in its verbiage.. . (and also wish FB had stuck with the livefeed option… I miss that). :)

  • http://foolishsage.com Foolish Sage

    I think since most power-users of Twitter give up using the standard Twitter home page interface pretty quickly, very few ever see–let alone are bothered by–Twitter’s “what are you doing?”

    And yes, the lack of a live feed is the most common complaint I’m seeing about the new Facebook.

  • http://foolishsage.com Foolish Sage

    I think since most power-users of Twitter give up using the standard Twitter home page interface pretty quickly, very few ever see–let alone are bothered by–Twitter’s “what are you doing?”

    And yes, the lack of a live feed is the most common complaint I’m seeing about the new Facebook.

  • Rob Nelson

    Fundamentally, I hope that this really does change how people interact with their general status update (at FB and beyond…like twitter etc..) I’m quite over reading about people’s boring life details….things I wouldn’t care even if I was talking to them on the phone or in the same room with them: “yourFriend: is eating cheese” (I did see that one the other day) How boring is that? Tell me what you thought about While you eat the cheese. Then I’m liable to be interested.

    will sites like twitter and FB replace Googles? no…you want to know what’s happening and huge right now, YES. They might replace the 5 o’clock news hour on TV. Twitter certainly is where people are turning for this kind of breaking information. But am I searching for answers to problems and questions on Facebook? nope. And I won’t be, likely ever. I ask the questions on twitter though…After I google for the answer that is (well most of the time)

    And regarding the death of blogs……Sites like Facebook and Twitter are IMO INCREASING traffic to blog sites. Before using these two tools, I could have cared less about blogs. Reading or Writing. Now, I am (slowly) putting my own together, reading other people’s and using both of those tools (and even myspace) to drive more and more traffic to the blog sites that I find interesting.

    What’s on your mind? -A better question indeed. because I don’t really care what’ you’re doing…unless you’re thinking too. :-) (p.s. If you tell me what’s on your mind….I might become interested in what kind of cheese made you think of it.)

    @guruvan

  • Rob Nelson

    Fundamentally, I hope that this really does change how people interact with their general status update (at FB and beyond…like twitter etc..) I’m quite over reading about people’s boring life details….things I wouldn’t care even if I was talking to them on the phone or in the same room with them: “yourFriend: is eating cheese” (I did see that one the other day) How boring is that? Tell me what you thought about While you eat the cheese. Then I’m liable to be interested.

    will sites like twitter and FB replace Googles? no…you want to know what’s happening and huge right now, YES. They might replace the 5 o’clock news hour on TV. Twitter certainly is where people are turning for this kind of breaking information. But am I searching for answers to problems and questions on Facebook? nope. And I won’t be, likely ever. I ask the questions on twitter though…After I google for the answer that is (well most of the time)

    And regarding the death of blogs……Sites like Facebook and Twitter are IMO INCREASING traffic to blog sites. Before using these two tools, I could have cared less about blogs. Reading or Writing. Now, I am (slowly) putting my own together, reading other people’s and using both of those tools (and even myspace) to drive more and more traffic to the blog sites that I find interesting.

    What’s on your mind? -A better question indeed. because I don’t really care what’ you’re doing…unless you’re thinking too. :-) (p.s. If you tell me what’s on your mind….I might become interested in what kind of cheese made you think of it.)

    @guruvan

  • http://foolishsage.com Foolish Sage

    Thanks for the comments, Rob.

    I’m a little more tolerant of the “is eating cheese” tweets or FB statuses (stati?) from close friends, as long as a) they aren’t the majority of what they post and b) they are at least occasionally witty, or at least cute (“…is eating cheese, and he doen’t mean he’s gnawing on a Daneile Steele novel.”). My post wasn’t meant to imply that the change in the perception of social media (and certainly not FB’s question change alone) meant the end of “cheese” updates, but I do think they are far less in the mix, which we seem to agree is a good thing.

    I agree that the reports of the death of blogs are greatly exaggerated. I do think the newer social media are changing the role of blogs, however. I now see my blog as the content-richer “back end” to my other social media posts. In other words, if I say something on Twitter that you’re interested in, and I link to a post on my blog, you have somewhere to go to “read more about it” if you so choose.

  • http://foolishsage.com Foolish Sage

    Thanks for the comments, Rob.

    I’m a little more tolerant of the “is eating cheese” tweets or FB statuses (stati?) from close friends, as long as a) they aren’t the majority of what they post and b) they are at least occasionally witty, or at least cute (“…is eating cheese, and he doen’t mean he’s gnawing on a Daneile Steele novel.”). My post wasn’t meant to imply that the change in the perception of social media (and certainly not FB’s question change alone) meant the end of “cheese” updates, but I do think they are far less in the mix, which we seem to agree is a good thing.

    I agree that the reports of the death of blogs are greatly exaggerated. I do think the newer social media are changing the role of blogs, however. I now see my blog as the content-richer “back end” to my other social media posts. In other words, if I say something on Twitter that you’re interested in, and I link to a post on my blog, you have somewhere to go to “read more about it” if you so choose.

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  • http://setsnservice.wordpress.com Tony Stiff

    Mark I loved the comparison of newspapers, blogs, and tweets. I'm still learning how to use Tweeter and I'm still spending the majority of my time with blogs and facebook and flickr but Tweeter is definitely growing on me.

    What apps do you like the best on Twitter that those of us still learning to use it should add?

  • http://gfmorris.net/ Geof F. Morris

    I think that Twitter and Facebook get one important part of the zeitgeist: people want that social grooming, whether it’s news/gossip or what people are doing. Three times in the last two weeks, I’ve had meal plans with friends materialize out of thin air thanks to Twitter: each time, it was, “Hey, I’m hungry … I’m thinking X” and suddenly, you’ve got friends eating together. The best part, I think, is that it’s all rather casual—you can get caught up in trying to keep up with everyone, but after a while, you learn that you only have so much attention to devote to it.

  • http://foolishsage.com trappermark

    Tony, http://www.adventcreative.com/best-twitter-advi… is a pretty good Twitter 101 for Noobies.

    I use Tweetdeck as my primary Twitter app, but there are several good ones, depending on your needs. Tweetdeck allows you to create custom groups that you can place in side-by-side columns. In addition to the default “replies,” “direct messages,” and “all friends” columns, I have “Close Friends” (tweeps I actually know or have some relationship with), “Informers” (tweeps I don't know, but who seem worthwhile to pay attention to), and “feeds” (tweet streams that are all links, such as @nytimes or @mashable).

    Retweetrank (http://www.retweetrank.com/) will help you find Twitter power users who “retweet” (pass on twitter links they think are valuable) a lot. Some of my friends hate RTers, so suit your own tastes.

  • Pingback: GFMorris.com » links for 2009-03-16

  • http://gfmorris.net/ Geof F. Morris

    I hate the sin and love the sinner, Mark. ;)

  • http://foolishsage.com trappermark

    Y'know, I think I actually know what that refers to ;-)

  • http://gfmorris.net/ Geof F. Morris

    I hate the sin and love the sinner, Mark. ;)

  • http://foolishsage.com trappermark

    Y'know, I think I actually know what that refers to ;-)

  • Pingback: GFMorris.com » links for 2009-03-18

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