Twitter has been the centre of a political storm for all the wrong reasons. They created an advertisement network under the garb of “promoting conversations” (which was never the goal but a byproduct). Other users have flocked to it (and services grew) around the “conversations” to finetune the algorithm. The biggest failure of Twitter, of course, is not to venture out in shopping, like Amazon, which would signal the intent to buy (and discuss). Instead, it was a staid platform to share the links.
I have mentioned it before, and I am going to do it again. It is a useless medium because of extremely pitiful rates of engagement. Either way, even with the number of “impressions” it doesn’t signal “acceptability” or “being an influencer”. It only means that you are hopelessly trapped in your echo chamber.
Which medium, then, is the right one? I personally prefer, endorse and wholeheartedly recommend Telegram. Besides being able to accommodate a large number of users, it helps me to coordinate and sync chats in real-time without backing them up. For example, its mobile application works perfectly with any other medium that can go online and connect with the application through a web browser. All your chats work in a platform-agnostic way. Since you can control the narrative, there is no algorithm to tamper with. I still remain devoted to the idea of catching up the chronological format of chats, for example. It gives me a unique perspective and context to what people are discussing. People try to force a platform to do something that it was never designed for. By keeping conversations short, anyone is unable to define the context. (That’s one reason why people blog).
I am not suggesting that long-form essays are required in daily contexts. Twitter conversations are like a short burst of static with a very high noise where the signal gets easily lost.
At some point, it is a “free service” where you are the product (ad tracking, for example). Similarly, any other medium like Mastodon instance where users get aggregated on individual servers that forms a part of “decentralised” services.
Which one would you choose? It is your calling. Twitter, however, is a time sink and despite what “journalists” claim, it is a complete waste and an utter disaster. I use Twitter to call out the lies peddled via marketing. For example, the Airmail app remains an unmitigated disaster- it hasn’t been updated, remains buggy and consumes a lot of resources. Yet, they keep on peddling marketing around the idea of having a “great email app” for Mac.
WordPress offers Twitter integration alone. Nevertheless, it is sufficient for the need. I can get posts on Telegram through IFTTT hooks (which is an excellent way to automate services).
RadOncNotes 