3 ms·

>"If you write solely for vanity than this is great, a zillion is better than 10 so you can feel important." I write because I want to share my thoughts. Somet

>"If you write solely for vanity than this is great, a zillion is better than 10 so you can feel important." I write because I want to share my thoughts. Sometimes I want to persuade people, and sometimes I just want to share interesting tidbits. I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. It seems like the optimal solution is to write twitter threads but also link to one's own blog.

karaterobot 4y ago
> I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. I don't think this is self-evident at all. For one thing, it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it. For another thing, the medium really is the message, and Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content. Linking to one's own blog is something, but it doesn't get around those problems, or hasn't seemed to in my experience. This is my own opinion, and nothing more than that. It's why I'm not on Twitter. If you see it differently, it makes sense that you are.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >"it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it." I don't disagree with your observation that the quality of who receives your ideas and how they engage with it is critical for ideas to spread. I would add on to this by asserting that having more people exposed to the content itself makes encountering such valuable reads much more likely and frequent. >"Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content" Agreed, but up to a certain point. I contend that is a valuable place to introduce people to, or otherwise lead them to, a more appropriate venue for long form content. For example, I learned about the work of Lyn Alden through a Twitter thread someone linked, and now I follow her on her website. I am fairly confident that if someone had just linked me one of her long form essays, I would not have been intrigued enough to explore her work. I also believe that the internet has ruined our attention spans and Twitter threads can act as a hook because each tweet is much more digestible than trying to dive into an essay right away. The medium is the message, but set and setting matters as well.
inglor_cz 4y ago
"I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people." I have a fairly frequented blog in my native language (lower to higher thousands readers per post, occasionally over ten thousand) and I recently deleted both my Facebook (2019) and Twitter (2022) accounts with 7000 and 5000 followers respectively. Readership declined a bit, but not drastically. Quality of audience improved significantly. All the people with attention span of a goldfish stayed back on the social networks and no longer torment me by reading just the first paragraph of a longish essay and constructing all sorts of strawman counterarguments from it, then screaming about them into a megaphone. Bigger audience is not necessarily better and I am happy to have got rid of my social network accounts. They do deform your thinking, no mistake about it, towards more shallowness.

karaterobot 4y ago

> I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. I don't think this is self-evident at all. For one thing, it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it. For another thing, the medium really is the message, and Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content. Linking to one's own blog is something, but it doesn't get around those problems, or hasn't seemed to in my experience. This is my own opinion, and nothing more than that. It's why I'm not on Twitter. If you see it differently, it makes sense that you are.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
>"it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it." I don't disagree with your observation that the quality of who receives your ideas and how they engage with it is critical for ideas to spread. I would add on to this by asserting that having more people exposed to the content itself makes encountering such valuable reads much more likely and frequent. >"Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content" Agreed, but up to a certain point. I contend that is a valuable place to introduce people to, or otherwise lead them to, a more appropriate venue for long form content. For example, I learned about the work of Lyn Alden through a Twitter thread someone linked, and now I follow her on her website. I am fairly confident that if someone had just linked me one of her long form essays, I would not have been intrigued enough to explore her work. I also believe that the internet has ruined our attention spans and Twitter threads can act as a hook because each tweet is much more digestible than trying to dive into an essay right away. The medium is the message, but set and setting matters as well.

inglor_cz 4y ago

"I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people." I have a fairly frequented blog in my native language (lower to higher thousands readers per post, occasionally over ten thousand) and I recently deleted both my Facebook (2019) and Twitter (2022) accounts with 7000 and 5000 followers respectively. Readership declined a bit, but not drastically. Quality of audience improved significantly. All the people with attention span of a goldfish stayed back on the social networks and no longer torment me by reading just the first paragraph of a longish essay and constructing all sorts of strawman counterarguments from it, then screaming about them into a megaphone. Bigger audience is not necessarily better and I am happy to have got rid of my social network accounts. They do deform your thinking, no mistake about it, towards more shallowness.