Monthly Archives: February 2014

A much better post than my previous throwaway one, but about much the same thing…

…and not by me: 13 ways of looking at Medium 

What I find particularly interesting about Medium (as discussed in the aforelinked article) is the fact that organises it’s content into what it calls ‘collections’. Actually, not just that it organises content this way, but that the primary view on the content is collections. Not people. Not chronology. Not location. (Though I’m still have trouble separating what Medium call ‘collections’  from ‘categories’ in this context).

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the assumptions that we have around content organisation online, Medium appears to be something of a shift. A shift to where exactly? Who knows… Anyway, read the article, it’s good.

A sudden realisation of the importance of meaningful control

A few new online services popped up recently — loaded with plenty of hyperbole — that seem to indicate a move towards more control over public stuff online. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and its great to see it showing up in the public sphere. 

First up is Branch, “A new way to talk to each other”. At first glance it is something like a semi-private (invite only) hosted discussion board. Control over participation. I found it especially interesting that “go beyond 140 characters” is touted as a feature — it’s funny what arbitrary restrictions will do to your perception.

App.net provides a semblance of control over development trajectory. It is billed as “a real time social feed without the ads”. Will a Twitter clone paid for by developers be better for developers that Twitter has been recently? 

Medium is “rethinking publishing and building a new platform from scratch”. It comes across as a something of a blogging platform, but rather than being organised by time, posts are organised in ‘collections’. A hosted blogging service with control over organisation?

Looks like a trend to me…

Untitled (I just liked this image)

Something I drew as part of my PhD research, then forgot about, then found again.