Comments on: Inboxed.

By: Sameer Vasta

Sameer Vasta — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:18:32 +0000

Happy birthday David!

Thanks for the comment. Very well thought out and I completely agree with the necessity for distributed networks instead of proprietary walled gardens, especially when it comes to messaging. (Part of the reason I’m no longer on Facebook.)

That being said, the reason I like Twitter direct messaging so much is that these are messages that don’t need to be saved, archived, kept, or processed in posterity. In fact, once I see the DM, I hardly ever (pretty much never) look at it (or need to look at it) again. Instead of messages, then, they become instant action reminders that float in and out of my consciousness as the reminders are sent.

It would be nice to have some sort of distributed way of providing these instant, fleeting, and impermanent spurs to action, but as of now, I can only think of Twitter that does this in a way that is easy to use and pervasive.

By: David Warde-Farley

David Warde-Farley — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:44:05 +0000

I realize the point you’re making, and I’m sympathetic to e-mail overload (feeling it a bit today). Still, I’m really, really wary of becoming too reliant on Twitter DMs specifically (because of the multitude of failwhales that seem to still be quite common, thanks Rails), but also on centralized social network apparatuses in general. I feel it’s very much taking a step backward in terms of the Internet’s founding goals of decentralization and distribution of responsibility, and turning the clock back on the 30 years of technology stack that makes things like PGP-encrypted email possible and relatively easy.

Most of all, this trend places the responsibility for the delivery of your (important) messages on a party who is, in truth, accountable to neither the sender nor the receiver. If my outgoing mail server is botching things, I can vote with my wallet and find a better ISP; ditto for my incoming mail. If we place too much of our faith and social capital in these walled gardens like Facebook, we have a lot to lose.

By: Sameer Vasta

Sameer Vasta — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:12:43 +0000

Actually, you’re right. I’ve recently gone down from 2400 feeds to 300. I have Twitter to thank for a lot of that.

By: Michael Lewkowitz

Michael Lewkowitz — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:00:34 +0000

Same thing for me though that it didn’t replace the reader but gave me great value through ‘random’ post ‘discovery”. I then cut 90% of my reader feeds - now only subscribed to my favourite blogs. Much more efficient.

By: Sameer Vasta

Sameer Vasta — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:02:49 +0000

Hey Michael, just wanted to address something you mentioned about Twitter vs feeds. There was a time before when I thought Twitter would become my “social rss aggregator” feeding me great links from people I trust.

It didn’t.

The reason? Volume.

I probably only process about 4-6% of all the tweets in my stream, which means I not only miss a lot of links, but I can’t go back to them for posterity. An RSS reader, on the other hand, lets me go back to posts I haven’t read and process them whenever I feel like it — and not have to be subject to the vagaries of time, volume, and my processing power.

By: Igniter (Michael Lewkowitz)

Igniter (Michael Lewkowitz) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:12:01 +0000

RT @vasta: I wrote a post on my blog on how Twitter direct messaging was overtaking my email just yesterday: http://bit.ly/lcEO

By: Michael Lewkowitz

Michael Lewkowitz — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:12:08 +0000

Sameer - great post. The bit of it not replacing email is very true - it’s used differently and the limitations and default to public are opening up some profound opportunities to change how we collaborate and communicate. I don’t get it yet - I don’t know if anyone does - but there is something different happening.

Thanks for the post (HT to twitter for being the channel I found it through :-). Heh… Twitter v. feeds is another interesting bit..

Cheers!