Bike shed

Look at your Twitter timeline. Take a good look! What do you see? Do you see a bike shed t:):)?

Twitterers give disproportional weight to trivial issues. Weather. Showing off. Holidays. How to ... - whatever.  Taste of food, book or music. What colour, shape or touch to give to another gadget. Opinions on TV programs, politician's opinions or the government's output. More opinions.

If Twitter really reflects daily life of species 'homo sapiens' then those tweets prove - according to me - that life is not about the pursuit of happiness. It's about trivial issues!

Or! Or is this the ultimate proof that there is a private & offline 'us' and an online & public 'us'? In private we think, talk, dream and act according to happiness? And online: we're never too deep for the fear of being shown to be insufficiently intelligent or informed?

My Chinese Garden

Do you want to take a look at my Chinese garden? If yes, open 

this door

Life in progress. List 28th June 2010 12.27h

My to do list. My public to do list concerning Twitter and Blogging (disordered):

• Check out writer Dulce Maria Cardoso. I want to read one of her books because she said “I love just let time pass by”. I blogged about her before.
• Re-read Tom Holland's  book 'Rubicon'. Find out why Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Was it survival? Vanity? Or ...? It's a spin-off on this blog.
• Read poems of one of my friends.
• Listen to music of one of my friends.
• Decide if I'll write a bookreview on Robin Olds book 'Fighter Pilot'. I finished it last week.
• Write a non-read-review on book ''THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life'. A book I'll never read.
• Check out website of cloud lovers:  www.cloudappreciationsociety.org. They really exist!
• Find out why Winston Churchill refused twice his Duke title after winning World War II. He was such a proud men and jealous on his nephew's title. Why did he refuse the title he earned himselves? Vanity?
• Re-reading Gerald Brenan's book 'South of Granada'. It's input for a #dream #travel post for @kirsty_wilson
• Pick out the 7 books I'll read in this years summerholiday. I love puzzling on this. Pick up books. Browse a little. Smell at the book - I really do. 

Question: What's your list?

In 100 years software is something like electricity now. On wires and sockets

Imagine 100 years from now. How will they (I guess all of us are dead) look back at our time and age? Will they ever understand all the fuzz about iPad,  web 3.0, Google WAVE,  HP, Microsoft etc? All the buzz about hard- and software we are using today. Right now it seems important 'what' and 'how' we use all the hard- and software. It seems irrelevant 'why' we use this technology.

In 100 years software is something like electricity now. It's there! (Or not when the power is down.) I know nothing about the hard- and software of electricity. Do you? I don't read magazines, tweets and blogs on wires and sockets. About their colours, useability, the companies that deliver them and the CEO's  (who are treated like sexy popstars) of the companies that make them.

Imagine 100 years from now! What do you see?

Birthday. Almost 1 year old

Yesterday I was not happy with my blog 'On Cincinnatus and Julius Caesar. Do selfish genes feel by definition: the chosen ones?'. For me it was a good blog: informative, personal and to the point. I do not really know why I was discontent. In a way my final blog didn't meet the unwritten expectations I had before I wrote one sentence. All I wanted was write about Cincinnatus. And end with the remark that this modest role model male from old Rome is rare is history. After written the first paragraph I was puzzling on the reason why Cincinnatus behaviour is rare in history. Why is power over others addictive and tempting? Why  do we want to stay on the top and is it difficult to give power back? To be honest I don't really know. I entered a world full of fat words: groups, aggression and power. I entered a world I not always want to enter: what is a human being? why do we do what we do? how to live my life?

In a couple of weeks I'll be blogging for 1 year. I started blogging after I realized that Twitter's format of 140 characters is too oppressive for me sometimes. In retrospect my main unconscious target past year was: being honest to myself about all the facts, dreams, illusions of life in order to being able to live life. In a way I'm trying to define "life". For me my blog is a mirror. My mirror. My public mirror. 

Question: Is my public mirror worth reading? If yes or no: 'why? What blinkers do I have? You can comment on this blog in public or send me a private e-mail.

Terentius 5 steps. Online we are offline concerning to 3 of his steps.

Ever heard of  Terentius (190-159 BC)? Ever heard of his 5 steps of Venus? It's the steps we take one after another "meeting" a new lover: (1) see (2) talk (3) touch (4) kiss and (5) make love. When I apply this to our online world I discover - planet Earth year 2010 - that we only are able to take the first 2 steps. Online we will never be able to touch, kiss and make love to a potential new lover. (Or do you take cybersex  for real?) In this respect 'being online' is a strange image because we're offline towards 3 steps. In this respect I do not really understand why so many of us think that the online world is more real, more fantastic, more living, more cool, and more connected to the world. Or am I biased because I like smelling, touching and tasting so much?

How about you? Never get tired of all the exaggerations in tweets?

Sometimes I feel as if I'm from out of space. All those tweets that are: new, exciting, more, good, wildest, latest, spark, awesome, ever, better, best, great, greatest, top, special, expert, ace, golden, one, recommended, changing, integrated, definitive, revolutionary, highly, genius, influential or super. Mostly with a capital letter.

At first I always checked out those tweets but I found out pretty soon mostly it's exaggeration. Mostly it's misuse of terminoly or cry for attention.

Why? Why are so many twitterers using so over the top words for just another story, software or picture? Am I too dutch on this? I guess it's because Twitter is above all a promotion medium. Self-promotion or promotion for their friends, career, organisation or business. Some statistics. Why do we tweet? 29% promoting own company, 26% networking career, 25% finding new stuff, 9% to talk about anything except business, 9% other and 3% promoting non-profit organisation (source July 2009).

Twitter is above all a marketplace. A place where everyone speaks out very loud: follow & read me and buy my business.

Exaggeration. I'm much more wondering about all the fascination for "new", "great" and "best". Something to do with the american "new frontier"? The present day translation of "Go West young man. Go West"? Is it something typical of western culture? Where does it come from historical? How do chinese sell their business? What words are they using for it - how does their picture look like in Wordle? Or are they not using words?  Footnote. Picture source: Wordle JeanD99. 

Virtual friends in 2010. The distance is so much bigger but the format is the same.

The world seems so exhibitionistic these days. I like privacy and intimicy. To be honest I'm not impressed by Facebook, MySpace and other friends-from-friends internetsites. I like to follow a few friends on MySpace. Look at their pictures and lurk a bit on their public "communication" but I don't feel the need to read, listen (and smell, taste and touch in the future?) to their friends and friends-friends. Why should I? For me all this is leisure time. I don't have to sell my business.

What do I want? I just want to have a few friends. Better a few friends I know very well than have 1.000 "friends" or "followers" I only know shallow. I like to know what my friends read, how their job is, what they dream and where they travel to. I like to share pictures. Share only in private. Why do people share so much of themselves? Why so exhibitionistic? Does "it" work better? What is "it"? Better for gaining new friends? Better for challenging life? Is hidden underneath it: the need to be in control of one's life and of their friends lives? If yes, why the need to be in control?

Why do people have the need to have more than 50 friends? Are they seeking for affirmation or love? Does it boost one's ego? Desmond Morris tells in his book 'The Naked Ape' (1967) that our human behaviour is largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as hunter-gatherers who lived in groups from 40-60 people to survive. This “40-60 people group” concept is according to Morris still alive. It's something I always recognize in my personal life. I stick to my 50 friends. It keeps my timeline in Twitter quiet.

Virtual friends in 2010. For me it still feels strange to be a friend to another human being on the other side of planet Earth. People who I never saw in real life and probably never will see in real life. It's distant, virtual and digital but at the same time we have to invest in our distant friends too. Listen to them. Talk to them. Give them attention. Give them affirmation. Be honest. The distance is so much bigger but the format is the same.

Gartner's hype curve. Is Twitter at the point ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’? Or already passed that a long time ago?

My comment on Meg Pickard's blog 'The many ways in which the experience of Twitter’s development and growing popularity is very much like the experience of early blogging'.

Nice clarifying timeline AND Gartner’s Hype Curve! When I think and rethink about it I’m not sure where to put Twitter right now in the Gartner’s hype curve. Is Twitter at the point of ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’ (that’s how I feel about it right now) or already passed the point ‘Slope of Enlightenment’? Should we not devide the Twitter users into a couple of groups? My assumption is that each groups rounds the timeline with a different speed and at a different time. The group ‘early adapters’ already rounded this timeline a few times. They had their own early adapters, media, experts, celebrities etc.

The groups I see: early adapters, new users and their friends, small media, mainstraim media, celebrities, experts, people you never expected, everyone (= it became a killer application = we can’t be a social human being without it).

Twitter a killer application? No! But ...

A newby. That's what I am in the world of Twitter. Heard of it a couple of years ago - when it first started - but I was not interested. I had had my share of online social networking (WAYN, Hyves and couple of others) and was tired of all the small talk and triviality. Instead of spend too much time small talking with others somewhere else on Earth - who I hardly learned to know any better - I'd better read a book.

I'm convinced that we as human beings are still living in small groups of 40-60 people. Thousands of years ago we knew all of them in person and we were able to use all of our senses concerning them. Those groupmembers were physical near us. All this changed, step by step, since 1880: we have telephones, radio, TV and since 20 years internet. In our time "our group" is spread out over the world. In my case: my neighbours, my brother with his family 80 km away living in another city, a friend that moved for his work to London, my best friend who still lives in my hometown and a couple of internet friends - whom I never met in real - living all over the world. Our "hometown" is the world but we still live our lifes in our small 40-60 group. In this respect I can't grasp how anyone can possibly really follow and communicate with more than 1.000 twitterers.

Some statistics on Twitter. How many users? 14 million users (march 2009) of whom 60% never come back after 1 month. How much do they talk? The median number of lifetime tweets per user is 1; 10% of the twitterers generate more than 90% of the content. Why do they tweet? 29% promoting own company, 26% networking career, 25% finding new stuff, 9% to talk about anything except business, 9% other and 3% promoting non-profit organisation (source july 2009).

What's the point? Why do I tell you all this? Because I try to understand what Twitter "is" or "should be". Because for me Twitter is not a killer application. Nor for the internet nor for human beings in general. (If there's something a killer application on internet past 20 years than it must be the web browser and e-mail. They change(d) our lifes because they make it possible to share and consume information and to communicate 24/7 real-time all over the world.) Twitter is 1 way to talk/ tweet with other human beings. Next to 10's of other ways. Mostly small talk. Sometimes something that makes me wonder, smile or cry. Only sometimes. Deepness? Hardly any ... just as less or much as all our other ways to communicate with other human beings. Why don't I quit Twitter? Because I don't want to quit. I want to meet new friends/ members of my group. I want small talk. I hope I never have to use Twitter in an case of emergency (e.g. disaster, airplane crash, terror attack or riot). I'll patiently wait for a nice song, quote or a new friend passing by once in a while. May be a follower. May be a follower of a follower. Just passing by accidently. It's all about expectations! Welcome accidently passing by stranger ... let's tweet a bit.

Definition on compelling content on Twitter

Question from Darren Rowse (@problogger on Twitter): What is Compelling Content to You?

My answer on july 27th, 2009:

At first I think “compelling content” is highly personal. Dependent on mood, balance between work and sparetime, situation at home and the way you think, feel and act in life (e.g. Maslows hierarchy of needs).

What’s NOT compelling? RT too much newsfeeder kind of stuff.

Compelling?

1. Things that make me think and reconsider my points of views in life, concerning history or the “others” in general.

2. New killer app kind of stuff.

3. Pointing at interesting people (not necessary twitters). To be a guide in the world with all it’s wonders and triviality.

4. Max of 6 tweets a day!