[LINK] new comms tools [was: Largest Facebook group in Australia?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 01:24 PM 7/01/2009, you wrote:
re blogs:
>But as they tail off and get archived the data is lost, even after a 
>relatively short amount of time.  So when I used to be able to 
>search the net and troll through newsgroups, listserves and so on, 
>now you have "forums" and blogs which tend to only contain current 
>or recent data.   No good if you want to hunt down a problem and 
>then come back a year later.   Case in point,  I have a synthesizer 
>that had a design flaw.   Someone posted the solution on a blog with 
>a complete breakdown on the repair required.  Sometime last year, 
>this blog tailed off and archived.   The site is not searchable 
>anymore and even my bookmark of the site only returns the most 
>recent blog entries totally unrelated to my search.

sometimes the search engines do archive/cache. I've been able to 
recover some blog posts of my own by using google when my blog crashed

>>And interestingly, many of the Gen-XYZs on these sites "don't
>>get" email. The only way they communicate with me is via their
>>social sites or they might try (in vain) to get me to use MSN.
>>When I mention IRC, I get blankness and void in return.

Rick mentioned IRC. If you spoke of IM, they would get it. I think 
the terminology just changed.

Rachel said:
>When I am encouraged to join an SN site I just ignore it.  I am on 
>"Linked In" but I really never log in.    Twitter is no good to me 
>as there is no information and I don't use handheld 
>devices.  Myspace kills my computer.   Facebook is annoying.    I am 
>subscribed to several web forums, but I wish they were email 
>lists.   And the ones that do provide lists are too high volume so I 
>use the web forum to filter out.    But the crappy in-page editors 
>are evil.

I agree on that one. If the page crashes, I don't know how many times 
I've lost what I just spent time typing in. That hardly ever happens 
with my email client. I absolutely hate online editors and 
organisations that rely on them for 'security' reasons.

>And your
>info will disappear after a while.   And web forums do not allow any 
>level of privacy as a comment made on one will eventually make it to 
>the web, so you can't define a message as "not searchable" in any case.

This sort of contradicts the non-archiving point earlier. I wonder if 
the real issue is the inconsistency and non-transparency of what is 
really happening to what is put 'out there'. If one knows or assumes 
something will be saved, there are times when that is a good thing -- 
eg recovery of crashed server info -- and others when it's not -- 
saying something and wanting to draw it back before it hits the 
server. And those situations aren't consistent either, that is they 
can't be anticipated. It's why I'm a packrat and save almost 
everything that I write on my computer somewhere, plus occasional backups.

Jan
BTW, people were replying to Ricks reply before it appeared in my 
mailbox. Something is weird re mail processing.



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007
_ __________________ _


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