Thinking about approaches to conversation and content creation on social platforms like Twitter, forum software like Discourse, chat apps like Slack or Discord, as well as the open web elephant in the room, good old blogging!
Basic premises:
- Open is better than closed — open meaning free in both senses, accessible, and antifragile
- Stock is better than flow — durable is better than ephemeral; deep is better than shallow (not a universal rule, sometimes ephemeral is best, depends on context)
- Legible is better than illegible — things should not just last, but be easy to find, ideally with some sort of shape or structure
What does this imply for the platforms / social networks we use to communicate with each other?
Maybe first, what kinds of communication do we value? Certainly many different ones:
- Sharing context (news, work chat)
- Common identity (memes)
- Decisions / consensus (work, organizing)
- Exploring ideas (forums)
- Spreading / sharing ideas (Twitter)
- Building knowledge (forums)
- Self-expression (blogging, insta, etc.)
- Building a coalition / finding like minds…
- Etc.!
The ones I’m primarily interested in, think are important, and want to explore more: blogs, forums, Twitter, and other content-focused websites meant to provide lasting value…
How to rethink how we use these?!