I would like to blog more often, which in practice means quicker and shorter, but Twitter has taken over from the short, efficient look-what-I-found-on-the-internet blog post. So to maintain not only blogging efficiency and frequency, but also the idea that my blog is an ever-changing snapshot of part of my mind, here’s a collection of stuff I put on Twitter in the past two weeks – stuff that could have been blog posts. Like this analog Twitter wall, blog posts like this are a way to make what we write on Twitter slightly less blink-and-you-miss-it.
Of course, one reason my blog posts are fewer and further between these days months, is that I have other stuff to do, including a job that I really enjoy. But this job entails a lot of both writing and internet- and social media-based research, so it requires the same skills that I use for blogging. This is good in the sense that blogging has honed relevant professional skills, but it also means that when I get home, I want to do something other than sit in front of a computer screen and produce sentences. My situation reminds me of the character Matilda: when she finally got enough academic challenges at school, she lost the ability to use her excess brain power to move objects with her mind (this happens in the book, not the movie).
However, I am qualified for my job partly because I have been writing online for years. Maintaining my own voice and online presence is important to me personally, but I would argue that if I do it right, it is important for my employer too. This article about employees with a personal brand – Twitter celebrities, widely read bloggers etc. – was an interesting read. And made my decision to tweet the link while I was at work feel like some kind of statement. Twitter is still a relevent way for me to get new information about stuff that is relevant for work in media and communications: like that the first live news blog was written in the 1920s.
Otherwise, I’m thinking about American politics a lot now, and whether or not Pinterest can predict the election, this XKCD is brilliant:
If it’s true that Amazon wipes Kindle accounts and refuses to explain why, then that is very scary to me. I imagine walking into my living room one morning and finding that all the books in my bookshelf are gone. As long as losing my Amazon Kindle books this way is even a remote possibility, I’m going to want to have the books I care about in paper format as well. Once I have a paper book, I might lose it or ruin it, but then it would by my fault, and something I could have prevented. It’s not like the book store, publisher or author can just decide that I no longer have the right to read the book, and remove it from my shelf or replace the printed pages with blank ones. I don’t like thinking this way. In fact, in most cases I would rather store my most important paper electronically, so that it can be backed up and not be as flammable. And I want to trust Amazon. But at the moment, I don’t.
This open letter to Ann Coulter was writtern to her by Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens after Coulter used the word retard. Stevens’ calm response shows a simple sophistication that proves his point without being overly politically correct or obnoxious.
It’s even more official: Oslo is one of the best cities in the world for coffee!
And here’s the story of The Writer Who Couldn’t Read:
Would your 15-year-old self listen to you? http://bit.ly/VqP0Xd (this link probably won’t work, because the blog Jezebel is still having issues after Sandy)
Bonus for Norwegian readers:
Hvilke rettigheter har norske forbrukere i møte med firmaer som Netflix og Amazon? @olavtorvund går gjennom jusen. http://bit.ly/T9R7fZ
Interessant fra @hogrim om skjev pressedekning i Vågåsaken. http://bit.ly/UFEvDS Hvorfor forstår ikke pressen at å være på den svakes parti ikke er det samme som å være nøytral?
Hvor er den profesjonelle eleven? Axel Fjeldavli spør: og skriver: "Elevene sitter i norsk- og mattetimen og lurer på om det betyr noe om de er der eller ikke. Elevene føler ikke eierskap til det som skjer og er ikke aktive i egen læringsprosess. Det er skolens store problem at elevene sitter som passive tilskuere til undervisningen.http://bit.ly/S7NfR9
"Det er visse grenser for hvordan man opptrer overfor andre mennesker – snikere eller ikke." om trikk via @jofolsland http://bit.ly/R5L1xE
Spotify for avis! "betaler gladelig 99,- pr. måned for å få tilgang til alt nyhetsstoff fra f.eks Schibsted-avisene. " http://bit.ly/S2S62V Jeg hadde også en diskusjon med @hillestad om hvorvidt det var for sent for avisene å gjøre dette, og hvor fine RSS-lesere egentlig var. Det som mangler for at RSS-lesere skal være en fullverdig alternativ til å sjekke ørten nettaviser, er at nettredaksjonene tagger artiklene fornuftig og setter opp feeder deretter, slik at jeg kan få alt politisk, økonomisk og utenriks fra alle og enkelt filtrere vekk sport og kjendiser, for eksempel. Helst vil jeg ha mer finjustert også, slik at jeg får “kultur” i betydningen anmeldelser av en ny tv-serie, men ikke “kultur” i betydningen “Hvem ryker ut av reality-TV denne uken, tror vi?”
George Orwells skriveregler fungerer like bra nå – også på nett http://bit.ly/Rsv2xh fra @kaaregarnes
According to Julie 