Friday, November 15, 2024

The topic of social media again

I’ve been on social media platforms for many years.  I don’t recall what came first, was it Facebook or MySpace?  MySpace was founded in 2003, Facebook in 2004 (I joined in 2007), but I’m not sure when I created a MySpace account.  I just logged in but it doesn’t show when I joined! 

I enjoy sharing my life and my thoughts with friends, family and the global internet audience.  I continue to tune my sharing - what I share, on what platform and how often.  I clearly want to participate in lots of places with lots of people, but I struggle with the stagnation on some platforms, privacy matters, and the uncertainty of newer places.  


Meta Facebook (FB).  It remains the place for sharing personal content with friends and family.  

Pros: privacy controls 

Cons: presentation of photos; ads and promoted content in your feed; too many lurkers vs true participants and contributors; trusting your content to Meta.  

Current status: active.  


Meta Instagram (IG/INSTA).   I feel it’s the most common platform for sharing photos publicly, but many users have private accounts.  Designed for (vertical) phone photographers.  

Pros: creativity features, e.g. adding music; sync with FB.

Cons: confusion on different sharing techniques and the associated restrictions on sharing and displaying media; ads and promoted content in your feed; cannot embed links; trusting your content to Meta. 

Current status: active as pjmixer.  


YouTube (YT).   I feel it’s the most common platform for sharing videos publicly. 

Pros: consistent look and feel; ability to have unlisted videos and control sharing.  

Cons: ads; true private videos need viewers to have a YT account; lack of personal feedback for amateurs like me; trusting your content to Google.  

Current status: active.  I predominantly use my pjmixer account and it’s where I share my videos, phil.sewell is just to organize my business playlists.  


X (Twitter).  Still the most common platform for public conversations and reposting articles, but some users have private accounts.  I used to share a lot, but I only go there on occasion these days to see stuff from people and organizations not on Threads.  

Pros: audience and coverage.

Cons: too many reposts without adding to the conversation; trusting your content to X. 

Current status: rare use but still have two accounts - philsewell and pjmixer.  


WhatsApp.  A messaging app that my ultimate frisbee friends treat as social media in our team groups.

Pros: texting and calling people via the internet.

Cons: clunky interface; trusting your phone number and content to Meta. 

Current status: Occasional use for messaging.


Threads.  A newer platform positioned as an alternative to X.  

Pros: Familiar interface; decent presentation of media; feels less cluttered; no ads?; sync with FB and IG.

Cons: I haven’t found a way to create lists or groups; opening links; trusting your content to Meta.

Current status: active as pjmixer.


Flickr.  It’s been around a long time (2004), I joined in 2007 when it was part of Yahoo.  It is now owned my SmugMug and independent from the big monopolies.  I have 13,873 photos on Flickr.

Pros: stats (I have 1.75M views), groups, organizing features, privacy settings.

Cons: public sentiment that it’s old fashioned.   

Current status: active as pjmixer.


Vero.  I’ve used this newer platform quite a lot.  I recall it was optimistically positioned as an alternative to IG.   From my POV, it’s frequented by lots of photographers.  

Pros: high quality presentation features; flexibility, ability to share a variety of content, e.g. music and movie reviews.    

Cons: closed community, i.e. non-intuitive discovery 

Current status: occasional use as pjmixer.


Bluesky.  The hottest tech talk this week for social media.  It promises of independence and freedom, but I’m still learning and not so sure.  

Pros: familiar interface; lots of flexibility.

Cons: lack of participation; needs work to create your connections and feeds.

Current status: I created accounts this week for pjmixer and philsewell.


Nostr.  I found this on the guidance of a photographer, but it’s promise is big and has associations with bitcoin.  It appears to be well architected and de-centralized, but it still requires a good dose of trust.

Pros: independence from a central platform provider, i.e. a company doesn’t own your content, nor controls your profile, connections and experience.  

Cons: techie setup; lack of participation.  

Current status: I created an account this week, my public key is: npub1mp08p6fyu3p0r8psycsgxcgcea9s5xzmx2tcg8ep4nfjpl4wpm6qajzn2s


LinkedIn.  Dominant site for connecting with your business community.  

Pros: Well organized.

Cons: dominance of industry promotional content; most business people are there, but there is inconsistent participation.

Current status: active.


Reddit.  I can’t easily describe it as I don’t use it very often.  Let’s say it is highly democratic opinion and advice site.  It has an interesting popularity voting system, covers a high amount of subjects and has huge amounts of users.

Pros: Strong contribution.

Cons: Unusual, unattractive interface.

Current status: occasional use. 


Pinterest.  I spent some time on this platform a long time ago and then snapped out of it.  It geared toward shiny material things and maybe experiences and is mostly geared toward the shopper, but could be seen as inspiration for creatives.  

Pros: Different, one-of-kind?

Cons: Narrow focus.

Current status: no longer active.  


There are other social media platforms that I’ve never participated in like TikTok, SnapChat, NextDoor and BeReal.  Maybe others could comment on their pros and cons.


Finally, there are some outliers.


Teams.  A Microsoft office messaging and on-line meeting platform that I use daily in my work life and in some situations is being used for social interaction in the workspace.  It has some fun features and it works for me.  I think Slack may have similar features, but I’ve never used it.  Skype and Zoom are used in the workplace and I’d imagine have similar add-on social features.


Blogs and personal websites.  If you have something to say, you perhaps write a blog post or create your own website.  Like an opinion piece in a newspaper a well written post on a current topic could create a debate, invite comments and even go viral.  For a long period of time I wrote regular blog posts across a wide variety of topics, including images and videos.  A few friends provide comments and I have to delete unwelcome comments now and again.  If I have something more substantial to share, I put in here.  Like this post.


Email.  Well, some might say it was the first form of social media.  It was a way to communicate one-on-one, but as soon as someone added other addressees or created a distribution list, an email could quickly create a long thread of discussion.   

  

If you’ve read this far, thank you.  You may wonder what I’m doing today with all these options.  It changes week to week, but it goes something like this.





Wednesday, May 22, 2024

New thoughts about social media

Why do we share things on social media?  

I thought the the term “social media” came from the early days of Facebook where the prompt said “Phil is…”.  Since 2009, it now says “what’s on your mind?”  https://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/facebook-tests-new-status-prompt-questions-how-are-you-feeling#. But from Samual Stroud, the term has older origins to the days of AOL.  https://www.giraffesocialmedia.co.uk/who-coined-the-term-social-media-first/#:~:text=In%201997%2C%20Ted%20Leonsis%2C%20was,which%20being%20AOL%20Instant%20Messenger.


At its simplest, social media is the way many people communicate today.  Think about it this way.  You’re invited to a party and you just got back from a European vacation.  It’s natural that you want to share your stories with friends and maybe even new acquaintances at the party.  You may even take out a photograph to share.  Or maybe even further back - the postcard.  When you were on vacation, you’d write your impressions of a new place on the back of a pretty picture of your vacation spot and mail it to a single person.  Are there people that would go to a party and not tell their friends why they haven’t been around for a few weeks?  That’s kind of weird, right?  You may say it’s even anti-social not to share what you’ve been doing.  Ok, if you don’t got to parties or don’t have friends, this may not be for you.  


Some people use a “trick” in social settings.  They ask you “how was your weekend?”  Many people ask this out of true interest or are simply being polite.  But some may hope that after you share your story, you ask them about their weekend which they’d love to tell you all about (and oh, by the way, they just happen to have some photos to share).  I apologize as a keen storyteller, after telling my story, I often forget to ask the initiator “thanks for asking, and how was your weekend?”.  I see some people on social media simply post “how’s your day?”.   It may not be fair to all, but I’d guess that may be a similar strategy for people wanting to (politely) share their story.


This is a stretch - when some of us log into our social media platform of choice, are we not asking the question “what’s new”?  We may not ask it directly, but we’re here aren’t we, we came to the party, what did we expect?  We want to see what’s new with our close friends, old friends, new acquaintances and maybe even strangers.  Then, when we’ve made the rounds, we’re comfortable sharing [in case you were wondering], this happened on my weekend (and here are a few photos that I took to remember it).


I feel that social media is an amplified digital version of traditional social meetings and gatherings.  It’s a new form of communication that lets us connect with friends and with strangers beyond the limits of physical proximity.  But, the social contract is delicate - I confess, I don’t appreciate all of its finer points and I can dominate a conversation at times or accidentally offend some people.  Digital amplification on social media can potentially create more serious issues or bigger embarrassment for some people.  I don’t have the new rules, but there are some commonly accepted guidelines for social media.  You need to carefully monitor your frequency of communication.  You need to be conscious of the amount of information you share.  And just like an office party, you cannot talk about sex, religion or money.  


I take a huge amount of photos of many subjects.  I record my impressions and ideas on video.  I travel quite a lot.  I have some friends that have the interest and time to see my longer-form stories while others like to get a glimpse into what Phil’s been up to.  I’m trying to be careful how much I share, but there’s lots more if you’d like to sit down.


Epilogue - remember that guy that used to come to all the parties with a mixed tape of all the new tunes he wants to share, what’s he doing now on social media?

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Just in time - my movie reviews on the day of the Oscars

I've really enjoyed the diversity of this year's Oscar best picture nominees.  I've been lucky to have seen all of the 10 films, including 4 in the last week.  I rated most of these films highly because of the depth of character complexity - sometimes relating to real people, other times - beautiful creations that are three dimensional.  Most are wonderful cinematic productions and a feast for the eyes that create a rich visual background for super storytelling. But, I'm sorry, Oppenheimer should not win.  No one would be unhappy if The Holdovers won and some may dare to say Poor Things is worthy of the top prize.

Best to worst:

  1. Poor Things
  2. The Holdovers
  3. Anatomy of a Fall
  4. Killers of the Flower Moon
  5. Past Lives
  6. Maestro
  7. American Fiction
  8. Oppenheimer
  9. Barbie
  10. The Zone of Interest


Poor Things


Loved it.  Like what - the chaos of Moulin Rouge + the artistry of Wes Anderson + the poetry of a Woody Allen character?  Stunning visuals.  Superb performances - Emma Stone is my pick for Oscar’s best actress.  Loved the dance scene, and the scene on deck of the ship, and Paris, and the end.  Beautiful adaptation of the book that I assume was a master class in imagination - my pick for Oscar's adapted screenplay.  As it says “a fantastical tale” but one with lots of lessons for humans wandering this crazy blue orb.  Mark Ruffalo is my pick for Oscar’s best supporting actor.  9/10.  


The Holdovers


Wonderful in every way.  Superb acting for multi-dimensional complex characters.   Lessons and love.  Characters and comedy.  Da’vine Joy Randolph is my pick for Oscar’s best supporting actress.   The only big movie of the year I watched twice.  9/10 


Anatomy of a Fall


I was glued from the opening scene with the beautiful border collie played by Messi. A terrific story and my pick for Oscar's best original screenplay (just pipping The Holdovers).  Perfect pacing throughout and felt the language switching added to the tension.  Magnificent performance by Sandra Hüller and 15 year-old Milo Machado-Graner.  Stunning location shots and cinematography.  So many elements contributed to a highly-entertaining movie.  8/10

Killers of the Flower Moon


Superb movie making, cinematography, sound, costume, soundtrack and directing.  Martin Scorsese is my pick for Oscar’s best director.  A very powerful story.  I loved DeNiro’s jail cell words about people will forget.  It was long but massive actors can keep your attention.   DiCaprio was superb - completely convincing portrayal of a tragic? slow-minded fool.  I sadly didn’t know it was based on a true story.   Superb cast with a few interesting cast members from the music world that I missed: Jason Isbell as Bill Smith, Peter Yorn as Acie Kirby and Jack White.  8/10


Past Lives


Cinematic visions galore.  Loved the tone and mood.  A simple, familiar story made more acute by the cultural (and language) differences.  Carefully acted on a delicate edge of sensitivity.  More artistic than I expected - in a wonderful welcome way.  8/10


Maestro


The scene in the cathedral was one of my favourites of the year - breathtaking. Cooper completely transformed for this role and gave us a beautiful memory of a music lover - Bradley Cooper is my pick for Oscar’s best actor.  Mulligan’s performance was also superb - perhaps creating the best duo performance of the Oscar year.  The revelation of complex characters always creates a great movie for me.  7/10


American Fiction


I came out thinking it was a decent movie but not Oscar worthy.  Then my wife explained what the movie was really about.  It was meta.  Then it became brilliant.  But I missed it.  I was the internal audience.  7/10


Oppenheimer


Torn on this one. Acting was superb - Downey Jr. was dazzling.  Cinematography was great.  But it was massively complex with so many characters.  Important from a historical point of view. 7/10   


Barbie


Fun, but way too silly to have any chance of making a serious point.  Musical bits were cringe worthy.  I’m man enough to admit I had to look up the meaning of patriarchy.  Loved McKinnon’s whackiness.  BUT, it's my pick for Oscar's best song.  6/10. 


The Zone of Interest


A strange film and hard-going - I don’t really understand why it’s nominated.  I did appreciate the cinematography, its premise and some shocking scenes.  Just hours before watching it, I'd seen Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall - I didn't know she was also in this film -I recognized her quite quickly.  The cut to a scene from today was perhaps its most concrete element and made the point. 5/10