December 2022 archive

Dec 17

The Term "Weblog" Is 25 Years Old Today

The phrase "Weblog is 25 years old" on a blue gradient background with a birthday cake emoji below it.

By way of a Mastodon post this morning, I learned that the term “weblog” is 25 years old today! 

The Wikipedia article for “Blog” says that the term was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. Reading the Wikipedia article about Jorn Barger, we learn:

On December 17, 1997, inspired by Dave Winer's Scripting News and running on Winer's Frontier publishing software, Barger began posting daily entries to his Robot Wisdom Weblog in the hope of finding "an audience who might see the connections between [his] many interests." These postings featured "a list of links each day shaped by his own interests in the arts and technology," thus offering a "day-to-day log of his reading and intellectual pursuits” and coining the term "weblog" as a novel form of web publishing.

At two syllables, “weblog” was of course ripe for shortening and so did evolve into “blog” just a couple of years later.

A “log of daily activities published on the web” became a “weblog” which then became a “blog”.

I started what we now call “blogging” back in 2000 on a site called Advogato that actually referred to your content as a “diary”. But I do remember well that other sites were hosting “weblogs” and “blogs”.

Pretty wild to think that was 25 years ago! Happy Birthday to “weblog”!

Dec 15

Google IPv6 stats consistently peaking over 40%

When I looked at Google’s IPv6 stats recently, it was great to see that the peaks are now consistently all over 40%. Back in January, I wrote about crossing the 35% threshold, so there’s been a 5% growth over the space of the year.

Would we who advocate for IPv6 want it to grow quicker? Of course! And if you look at the per-country page, you can see that it has grown quicker in some countries than others.

But hey… we’ve been at this for a long time, so I’ll celebrate that 5% growth this year! Let’s see if it keeps on going more next year!

P.S. If you want another source of IPv6 statistics, colleagues of mine at the Internet Society are involved with measuring IPv6 on our Pulse measurement platform.

Dec 15

Google IPv6 stats consistently peaking over 40%

When I looked at Google’s IPv6 stats recently, it was great to see that the peaks are now consistently all over 40%. Back in January, I wrote about crossing the 35% threshold, so there’s been a 5% growth over the space of the year.

Would we who advocate for IPv6 want it to grow quicker? Of course! And if you look at the per-country page, you can see that it has grown quicker in some countries than others.

But hey… we’ve been at this for a long time, so I’ll celebrate that 5% growth this year! Let’s see if it keeps on going more next year!

P.S. If you want another source of IPv6 statistics, colleagues of mine at the Internet Society are involved with measuring IPv6 on our Pulse measurement platform.

Dec 14

Au Revoir Revue! Twitter to Kill Off Newsletter Service at End of 2022 – I Guess I Need To Move My Newsletter!

 

The text "Au revoir revue" on a blue background

I was a little surprised to learn this morning that Twitter is shutting down its Revue newsletter service. Casey Newton first wrote about this back on November 3 in his Platformer newsletter, but subsequent articles after the massive layoffs confirmed that Revue is shutting down - and basically all the associated staff have been let go.

I had missed all those articles and just randomly saw a reference this morning when scanning social feeds.

It’s NOT actually surprising if you think about the fact that Elon Musk has to be laser-focused on revenue right now, particularly as his self-induced chaos is causing users and advertisers to leave Twitter. Revue was about long-form content published in email - and was not really a quick and easy way to increase advertising 

So as they note, it’s all going away:

  • December 20, 2022 – Revue will set all outstanding paid subscriptions to cancel at the end of their billing cycle
  • January 18, 2023 – Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted

It’s too bad as it was a nice platform… if you were a strong Twitter user.

It had the nice feature that it showed up right on your Twitter profile page, offering people the ability to easily subscribe:

screen shot of a Twitter feed showing a newsletter box in the feed

On the back end, there were some simple tools to easily add tweets into your newsletter.

Also, unlike Substack, you could set up your Revue newsletter with a custom domain, such as I did with choices.danyork.com.

So What Will I Do Next?

As that image shows, I started a newsletter on Revue called “A Choice of Futures” back in October 2021 and published a whopping two issues! 🎉

I had great plans to do more, but ran into several challenges in timing and then got super busy with work and volunteer responsibilities in 2022.

But I was thinking about getting back to it in 2023.

So what now?

I could move that newsletter over to Substack, Medium, AWeber, or any of a zillion other places.

Or.. I can just shut down this particular newsletter. 

Realistically, that’s probably what I’ll do. Send one final issue as the period at the end of the sentence, and then be done.

You see… I actually already have a Substack newsletter at danyork.substack.com called “A View From The Crow’s Nest” where the intent is to write about new technology out on the horizon. It’s an even older newsletter that I used to run through an email service provider. I moved it to Substack back in March 2020 when Substack was getting a lot of attention. I wanted to learn about Substack and it was my intention to start doing more with it.

But then.. pandemic… and so much else of the craziness of COVID-19 and how our world was changing. I dropped that newsletter and so much else, just caught in the moment of trying to make it through each day.

By the time late 2021 came around and I was interested in a newsletter again, I had some concerns about the direction Substack was going… and so I thought I’d give Revue a try.

Ha!

Turns out the concerns would end up being with where Twitter and Revue were going instead!  (Although I do still have concerns about Substack!)

So that will be my personal plan. I’ve hit the button to export all my data from Revue, and I’ll invite folks there to join my other newsletter on Substack.

Any of you reading this are welcome to join too!

 

Dec 13

New collaborative book about IPv6 – available for free, and seeking contributors

screenshot of the readme page for a GitHub repository about a collaborative IPv6 book

Why is it that many of the “IPv6 books” are 10+ years old? Where can you find the most current info? Could a group of people using IPv6 today come together and create a new book about IPv6?

Brian Carpenter asked those questions … and then started a project on GitHub to do exactly this – create a “collaborative IPv6 book”. The idea is to capture current knowledge from people working with IPv6 – and then keep it up-to-date.

So far he’s had a number of people contribute text – and the work is underway. As the repository states:

The intention is a practical introduction to IPv6 for technical people, kept up to date by active practitioners.

The book will be available free of charge (and free of advertising) on-line, possibly with an option to obtain a printed copy at cost price.

This GitHub repository is a starting point. It may be replaced by a differently structured repo as the work progresses and we gain experience of how to do it.

You can read the book online, with the caveat that it is still very much in development. If you want to contribute text or edit, there are contributor guidelines that explain the process.

I think it’s great to see another book emerging, and I look forward to seeing how this collaborative model works for all involved.

Dec 13

New collaborative book about IPv6 – available for free, and seeking contributors

screenshot of the readme page for a GitHub repository about a collaborative IPv6 book

Why is it that many of the “IPv6 books” are 10+ years old? Where can you find the most current info? Could a group of people using IPv6 today come together and create a new book about IPv6?

Brian Carpenter asked those questions … and then started a project on GitHub to do exactly this – create a “collaborative IPv6 book”. The idea is to capture current knowledge from people working with IPv6 – and then keep it up-to-date.

So far he’s had a number of people contribute text – and the work is underway. As the repository states:

The intention is a practical introduction to IPv6 for technical people, kept up to date by active practitioners.

The book will be available free of charge (and free of advertising) on-line, possibly with an option to obtain a printed copy at cost price.

This GitHub repository is a starting point. It may be replaced by a differently structured repo as the work progresses and we gain experience of how to do it.

You can read the book online, with the caveat that it is still very much in development. If you want to contribute text or edit, there are contributor guidelines that explain the process.

I think it’s great to see another book emerging, and I look forward to seeing how this collaborative model works for all involved.

Dec 11

Resolution Song – a global movement of voices singing a common song for peace and climate action

Today I was blown away by the beauty of a song woven together of voices from around the world - Resolution Song !

I was completely unaware of the Planet Resolution movement that has now seen this song sung by thousands of people in over 100 countries. Their YouTube channel is full of inspiring versions of this song, and you can see even more at the YouTube hashtags #planetresolution and #NoMusicOnADeadPlanet. 

This article by Abbey Wright in April 2022 explains the origins of this project back in 2019 and how it evolved into a global movement. I liked this part:

Resolution represents hope. It is an expression of global unity and a celebration of diversity. Resolution is a living, breathing example of the kind of global collaboration that we need to solve the planetary emergency. 

While there was a big push for people recording songs back around Earth Day 2022 in April, the project continues to ask people to record their own versions and publish it with the hashtags. The sheet music is available on planetresolution.com

I love seeing music bringing people together in this way!

Dec 10

Twitter to Launch Blue, Gold, and Grey Checkmarks in The Next Week

Screenshot of an advertisement for Twitter Blue saying you get the blue checkmark with a verified phone number

Today Twitter announced that starting on Monday, December 12, people can pay either $8 on Android or $11 on IOS to subscribe to “Twitter Blue” where they will get:

  • the blue checkmark
  • the ability to edit tweets
  • prioritized appearance in replies, mentions, and search
  • 50% fewer ads than non-verified people
  • the ability to post longer, 1080p videos
  • early access to other features

This is, of course, the re-launch of the re-launch of Twitter Blue after the disastrous recent attempt where people were quickly paying the $8 to set up all sorts of bogus and troll accounts.

Prioritization = Pay To Speak

The prioritization seems new to me. Was that in earlier versions of Twitter Blue? 

I find it fascinating that so much of the messaging about Twitter has been around “free speech” and leveling the playing field… but yet that messaging seems to run into the need to figure out how to get income. 

For many people in North America, Europe, or other more developed regions of the world, the $8 (or $11) per month might not be a big deal. But for people in MANY parts of the world, that may not be affordable. Will the rate be adjusted for countries where the income levels are substantially different?

How many voices will be diminished because they cannot afford this monthly subscription?

A Land of Many Checkmarks

What I found more interesting was a tweet in the thread:

screenshot of a tweet saying "we’ll begin replacing that “official” label with a gold checkmark for businesses, and later in the week a grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts"

The text reads:

we’ll begin replacing that “official” label with a gold checkmark for businesses, and later in the week a grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts

And so Twitter will become a land of many checkmarks.

I don’t see anywhere info about HOW you will get those checkmarks. What is the process to get verified for those? Who will be eligible?

The Gamble Of Who Will Pay

The big question is of course - who will actually pay for this subscription? I see many Elon Musk supporters saying they will do so. But I’m not seeing many others talking about it. Particularly right now when the service seems to be in the midst of so much (mostly self-induced) chaos.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2006 and the service has been my “home” on social media. But right now, I don’t see myself paying for Twitter Blue amidst the chaos… and to be honest I don’t yet see the value in the subscription. (And also because I’m increasingly finding richer discussions over on Mastodon.)

Would you pay for Twitter Blue? 

Dec 09

With Twitter in Chaos, What is Plan B for a TwitterSpaces Alternative?

The words "Plan B?" on a blue-gray gradient background

I am a huge fan of TwitterSpaces! I enjoy hosting and participating in live audio TwitterSpaces. In fact, I’m hosting one later today!

It’s a great system and service to have live audio conversations. Easy for people to join and use. Easy to manage in terms of moderation. Easy to promote and publicize, particularly with the scheduling, and because you have your existing network of Twitter connections. The “live bar” in the mobile apps also helps people discover your Space, as does Twitter’s algorithm in promoting the Space to your followers and others. The user interface works for me, although I do wish web browser participants could participate versus just listen. Live transcription is great, as are the recordings.

All in all, I really like the service and want to continue doing TwitterSpaces.

BUT… with all the (mostly self-induced) chaos happening at Twitter right now, and the fact that a good number (most? all?) of the TwitterSpaces developers were let go in all the layoffs, I do wonder how much of a future there is. I’ll keep using it… but will the service stop working some day? Do TwitterSpaces fit into whatever grand plan there may or may not be?

So the question is…for those of us who want to engage in live “social audio"... what are the alternatives to TwitterSpaces?

Reddit Talk

I am most intrigued by Reddit Talk as the service provides most all of the features of TwitterSpaces, with the addition that web browser users can be full participants in the Talk (unlike Twitter).

The user interface is similar to TwitterSpaces, particularly in the mobile apps. Raising hands and moderating users is a similar experience. As a moderator you can check out the potential speakers by looking at their Reddit profiles and their “karma” points (a measure of engagement on Reddit). You can easily bring people on stage - and just as easily remove them.

Reddit added a “sound board” before Twitter did, and it has some nice jazzy music you can play while waiting for a talk to start. Talks can be recorded and stay around indefinitely (versus 30 days on Twitter). You can schedule them in advance and easily promote their URL. Comments are integrated into the “post” for the talk.

There are three things I miss from TwitterSpaces. First is the lack of an ability to spotlight content during a Talk, as you can share tweets into a Space and thus focus attention on the tweet in the conversation. You can of course post this as a comment in the Reddit post and direct people there, which is almost better because it is easily accessible after the Talk is over. But it doesn’t have the same effect as sharing into a Space in terms of helping guide the conversation.

Second, there is no live transcription as there is in a TwitterSpace. From an accessibility point of view, I think the transcription is great.

Third, there is no easy way to get any kind of analytics about how many people listened to your Talk or participated. I mean, TwitterSpaces don’t have much either, but they at least tell you: 1) how many people have listened to your talk in total; and 2) how many people listened live. That’s at least something that can help you understand how much engagement you have.

Overall, though, I like the Reddit Talk experience a lot!

A challenge for some people will be that Reddit Talks can only be done with a “subreddit” (a community), and only initiated by a moderator of the subreddit unless the “mods” have authorized you as a user to create Talks. If you are already a Redditor, and have a subreddit with a following, this may not be an issue. And the good news is that anyone can create a brand new subreddit where they are the moderator. But if you are doing that, you are essentially starting over in creating a new social graph.

And some people may have a challenge because it’s… well… Reddit... and the site’s reputation for trolls and bad behavior affects many people’s views of the site. I’ve been a long-time Redditor and would argue that there are many strong, positive, and non-troll-infested communities… but I grant that it can be an issue.

LinkedIn Audio Events

Wait… LinkedIn has social audio? Yes, indeed, you can now host LinkedIn Audio Events (see also this PDF that walks through the service).  I hosted an Audio Event the other day and it does provide a very basic audio experience. You set it up within LinkedIn as an event. You must schedule the audio event - you can’t just “go live” right at that moment, but you can schedule it for 5 or 10 minutes from the time you are creating the event… so that’s close enough. When you create the event, you can:

  • Add a cover image related to your event
  • Add a description with information about what you will be discussing
  • List any speakers who will be participating from your LinkedIn connections. Apparently after they confirm they will appear in the event information. (I did not test this.)

Once you publish the event it goes out in your activity feed where your connections may see it.

The one struggle I had was that after I hit the publish button… I could not find the event! 🤦‍♂️

I was just back on my LinkedIn home page.. and couldn’t see my new event anywhere. I had to go into my profile and into my Activity Feed to find it again and join the event. Hopefully I just missed something in the user interface, but I found this confusing.

The event itself went fine. Two people I know saw the announcement in their LinkedIn feeds and joined in, so I was able to test a bit.

On the plus side, the audio sounded good, and the real-time transcription was pretty amazing. LinkedIn being the kind of site it is, it was also very easy to see the other people in the chat and whether you are connected or not - and then make those connections.

Being just another form of a LinkedIn “Event”, there are also analytics about how many people attended the event live, and also how many have viewed it over time. If you have more than 10 attendees, it seems you will get demographic info about the jobs, industries, locations, etc., which makes sense given that LinkedIn has all of that.

One negative for me was that it seems you can only be in the Audio Event once as yourself. I started out in the web interface and then thought I’d join on the LinkedIn mobile app. Doing so kicked me out of the web interface.

While this may sound strange to want to do, and was probably NOT on the LinkedIn developer’s requirement lists, it’s actually been enormously helpful for both TwitterSpaces and Reddit Talks to be able to have yourself in the session on two different devices. Yes, you need to adjust volume and muting so you don’t create feedback loops, but it can be helpful operationally.

Anyway, this is just something to know if you try LinkedIn Audio Events.

Other differences are that, as LinkedIn notes on a help page:

At the moment, Audio Events cannot be recorded or replayed after the event has ended. Audio Events have no video, screen sharing or text chat.

Now, while you don’t have a live text chat, you can leave comments on the event page in LinkedIn, in a similar fashion to a Reddit Talk or replying to the Space on Twitter, so there is a way 

The other services all do offer recordings, and perhaps this is something LinkedIn will develop over time.

Another note - Audio Events are only available right now for individuals on LinkedIn, not for pages that organizations and companies have.

Otherwise, it has many of the same features as the others, as described in the “Host an Audio Event” section of a help page. There’s a maximum of 17 speakers (which is plenty, to me) and basic controls to bring someone on stage and off.

One would think that, with LinkedIn being all about establishing and maintaining your professional reputation, there would be fewer moderation issues with regard to trolls and people seeking to disrupt a session (versus Twitter Spaces or Reddit Talk).

Without the recording feature, I’m not personally interested in doing as much with LinkedIn Audio Events… but they could be an option.

Spotify Live

Once upon a time (well, in 2020), an app launched called “Locker Room” to host live conversations about… sports! It was then acquired by Spotify who renamed it first to “Greenroom” and then to “Spotify Live”. (Read the history.) I used it a number of times while it was Greenroom and it was a decent service, although only accessible through the mobile app.

It’s not clear to me whether this remains a viable option. Back in April 2022 when Spotify renamed it to Spotify Live, they also announced live sessions would be merged into the main Spotify app. The theory was that the hundreds of millions of Spotify users could find and listen to live sessions. People would still need to use the separate app to participate in the live sessions, but discovery would be easier. They still mention his on their “live on Spotify” web page. Spotify also said it would be streaming its original live events through the main app.

Eight months later, I’m not sure how this is working. When I go into the main app on my iPhone, I can’t find any way to see the “Live on Spotify” items. And when I go into the Spotify Live app, it’s a dead zone. There were only four live “rooms” and they only had one or two people in them… and in the time I was in them, I didn’t hear any audio! Now, I was doing this early in the morning US Eastern, but I would have expected some European activity. There are some rooms scheduled over the weekend, and perhaps they’ll have audiences.

But right now, I’m not getting the vibe that it’s a strong option.

Clubhouse

I could, of course, return to Clubhouse, where the whole "social audio" thing emerged in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic.

I could, but part of the reason I left Clubhouse was because it was completely rebuilding a social network, and I have already spent the time doing that in other services. What I like about TwitterSpaces is it leverages my existing social graph on Twitter. Similarly, Reddit Talk leverages the membership of a given subreddit, and LinkedIn leverages your existing connections.

Plus, as has been outlined in many posts, Clubhouse has had a range of mis-steps and issues. When I go into the app it has a ghost town feel to me. They did finally add web listening, but like TwitterSpaces on the web, you can’t really engage.

I just don’t see Clubhouse as a really viable option for me. Maybe it will work for some of you.

So.. what is Plan B?

I don’t know. Of the options I outlined above, I’m going to continue experimenting with Reddit Talk, and I’ll be curious to see if LinkedIn adds recording capability.

Overall, though, I hope that TwitterSpaces can continue. I’ve noticed that Elon Musk seems to enjoy participating in Spaces. He had one last Saturday with over one million listeners! So perhaps he’ll work to ensure that there are appropriate developers and engineers to keep it all working.

We’ll see! In the meantime, I’ll keep my ears open...

What do you think could be a good alternative?

Dec 08

Mastodon, Nonprofits, and the need for *some* kind of basic analytics to help justify spending time and resources

three question marks on a blue grey background

Why aren’t there more nonprofits using Mastodon? Why aren’t there more small businesses? What is taking these organizations so long? Shouldn’t they be already here?

These are questions I’ve seen raised repeatedly on Mastodon, and I’ve been asked directly about some of the organizations I’m involved with.

One challenge most nonprofits have was highlighted over on Reddit when Ben Jancewicz asked a question in r/mastodon:

Among many other things, I run social media accounts for large organizations.

Many of these large organizations are moving to Mastodon.

These organizations require reports; they want to know how their account is performing. Things like new followers, reshares, clicks, that sorta thing.

Is there an analytics.twitter.com but for Mastodon?

His question was unfortunately answered with a lot of criticism, and initially many “down votes” (which, on Reddit, can reduce or remove the visibility of a post).

I answered at some length… which became the basis for this post.

I think some folks in the thread were confusing the request for info *about the performance of your Mastodon account* with advertising and surveillance. But the question was NOT about ads or tracking visitors. It was about just getting very basic engagement analytics - which unfortunately are not readily available right now on Mastodon.

Having being involved with nonprofits for many years (as an employee, volunteer, board member, donor), there are some simple realities about nonprofits and communication / marketing:

  1. Most nonprofits don't have much money.
  2. What money they do have comes from donors who are giving to the organization to advance the mission of the organization and expect their donations to be spent for delivering on that mission.
  3. Most donors (and boards) do not view "talking about the organization" as part of the core mission. It is viewed as "administration" or overheard.
  4. Therefore most nonprofits have small communications budgets and teams.
  5. This often means that engaging with people on social media is handled by a very small number of people (maybe only one or even part of a person's time). Similarly, they often have a small IT team... or may not have any at all and use an external vendor.
  6. Those communications staff are usually buried in work because they are being asked to do so many things to communicate about the organization.
  7. With limited time and budget, the nonprofit needs to prioritize their activities to where they can engage with the most people in order to advance their mission.
  8. The nonprofit needs to justify to its donors why it is spending time / money on any activities.

Think about it… if you donate $100 to a local nonprofit organization helping feed people in your region (a food shelf, food bank, food pantry, etc.), most people would ideally like as much of that $100 to go to FOOD, versus to communicating about the organization's services.

But... the organization NEEDS to use social media / networking to communicate to potential audiences, to help people learn about its services, to find volunteers, to attract more donors, and just to engage with the community around it. Most nonprofits *want* to be part of their larger community, whether that is regional or global.

Centralized services like Facebook and Twitter make this easy because they can provide all sorts of stats and analytics about how many people see your content, how often things are shared, etc. They even provide nice charts and trends over time. You can go back to your donors and board and say "by spending our time/$$ in posting to Facebook, we've been able to reach X people. They have further shared our info with Y more people. We've had Z people 'like' our content, so we know at least that many people are seeing our info. Our account has been followed by N other orgs in our community/region", etc.

Of course, the platforms provide this info because they want to sell you ads, but even if you never buy an ad (because you may not have budget), these analytics help you justify WHY you are spending time on the platforms. You have a measure (which may be inaccurate, but it is *a* measure) that you can relay.

So if the person involved with social media wants to expand into using Mastodon, they need to be able to justify to their donors and board about WHY they are spending their time setting up a Mastodon account, sending out messages, interacting with people, etc.

The donors and or board will have questions like:

  • how many people are you reaching?
  • how many people are learning about the organization?
  • are you spending our money wisely?
  • or are you wasting our money experimenting with something that isn't going anywhere?
  • shouldn't you be spending your time on Facebook or Twitter where we can know how many people are seeing our information?

With limited time and resources, nonprofit staff have to be able to justify any use of their time. 10 minutes spent on Mastodon is 10 minutes NOT spent on some other social platform.

One common reply was that “these organizations should just run their own Mastodon server!” Running your own Mastodon instance may be possible for larger nonprofits with IT teams, but may not be for smaller organizations without any IT support. Even then, the information you get may or may not be useful (I've not administered a Mastodon instance, so I don't know). And with posts/toots being federated, I'm not even sure what server logs would realistically show, since the posts are being viewed on servers all across the Fediverse.

Ultimately, if we want more nonprofits to move off of centralized services like Twitter and move over to decentralized services like Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse, we need to help those nonprofit staff be able to justify why spending their time on Mastodon is a good thing! Hopefully over the months and years ahead, tools will emerge to help with this kind of information.

For the moment, I think the only option is what Anil Dash suggested in a thread that nonprofits need to view using Mastodon as a future investment.. but the question is whether resource-starved nonprofits even have the staff time to do that.

P.S. While I focused on nonprofits, you could equally say this for small businesses, just thinking of "investors" (which could just be the owner) instead of "donors".