I’ve recently taken up walking and running again for exercise and went out today just after a thunderstorm. Everything was wet and glistening, the birds were out grabbing worms and the scent of foliage and rain was in the air. It was wonderful. I’ve resolved to try to go out more often just after the rain, even at the risk of getting a little wet and muddy. It’s so worth it.
On another note, HandRooster is back in business and has a redesigned site and I’ve been writing on simplicity, productivity, technology, happiness, etc over at my new site, mindreap. I fully intend on posting on Riding the Wind in the same way I always have, so don’t worry about that.
When I started using Twitter seriously not all that long ago, I wanted a way to be able to manage my tweets and to monitor the tweets of my friends without having to go to the page repeatedly throughout the day. I found many ways to do this on the Mac – Twitterfox, Eventbox, Twhirl, etc. I settled on a mix of Twitterfox and Eventbox but at around the same time, I saw Stephen Fry testing out posts from something called Identica. He had a few exchanges with some people who didn’t seem to like this service and I thought I’d check it out. When I got there, I was immediately struck by the lack of beautification in the way that Twitter is a sort of cutesy world of design. I must admit that I like the way that Twitter looks and didn’t immediately like the way that Identi.ca looked. That was soon not to matter to me, as I discovered all of the neat things which Identi.ca does better.
Identi.ca allows me to post to it via xmpp. I use GTalk through Adium to do this. Not only can I post this way, but I can also get my messages this way. This allows me to only go to the site when I really want to, which is a liberating experience for what is essentially a microblogging social network. The other thing I love is the ability to see the replies other people have received, which I cannot do via Twitter to my knowledge. I can also tag posts on Identi.ca and these tags will be clickable and when clicked they will take you to recent items which have included those tags. It really makes it easier for people to find other people with similar interests. In this same way, you can tag your profile with interests so that people can find you easier.
Some other key features are the ability to favorite posts by people, and the posts with most favorites will go into a popular tab on the main site where everyone can see them and see what is happening in the larger community. It is the community which really makes this service magical, though. When I first got onto Twitter, I felt as if I was alone in my little world, tweeting away to nobody. When I got onto Identi.ca, I was immediately surrounded and embraced by like minds and differing minds, by geeks, poets and hippies and all sorts of people I’d never think to immediately seek out. It happens on Identi.ca because it is a wild and strange world in which anything can happen.
I sort of see Identi.ca as the Facebook of the microblogging world, to Twitter’s Myspace. While this analogy is not perfect in any way (mainly because Facebook is not Open Source and still has many flaws) but maybe you’ll see my point. Twitter is the closed old system while Identi.ca is the trendy new system which is growing fast and making changes which Twitter will eventually be scrambling to make itself. The software on Identi.ca is Open Source and enabling in nature, allowing people to connect instead of just sticking to their individual groups.
I still use Twitter, as many people on Identi.ca do. I’ll tell you one thing though. Twitter may look prettier on the outside, but Identica has more heart. I’ll be looking forward to seeing your ‘dents’ as opposed to your ‘tweets’ in the future.
I’m issuing a challenge. I’ve written it on the Riding the Wind main page and now I’m writing it here. I want people to send me emails. Not spammers, mind you. I know how to use spam filters. I’m sure I can sort that out. What I want is for people (anyone) to send themes and titles to mj@ridingthewind.net and I’ll compose poetry or other forms of writing based on those themes and titles. This is going to be hard, assuming anyone likes me enough to do it!
Quick note, by the way: I’ve just upgraded Riding the Wind. I moved some stuff around, changed the way I’m doing poetry, made the blog a secondary page, updated the About section, and made a main static home page which will host news about me and my writing as well as some other stuff. If you get a chance, I beg you to go take a look at it. It was too much effort to not be looked at by anyone.
I realise I haven’t done the photos yet – I’m working up to it, you see. When I open Aperture I see them all sitting there and they really give me a sense of dread. I just really dislike putting them up until I have them as good as my meager skills will allow.
Anyway, I shall try to force myself into doing them tomorrow. Until then, I’ve been doing a lot of social networking stuff. As of now I’m using Ping.fm (via GTalk messages – I use Adium as a client) to update my status on all of my social networks. Then I use a program called EventBox to retrieve all of my rss feeds (livejournal friends, blogs I read, news, etc) and almost all of my social networking (Twitter, Pownce, Flickr, Reddit, Facebook) updates. At the moment I have to settle for letting Identi.ca send me IM messages in Adium because they don’t have it in EventBox yet. They’re adding more functionality to the program as they develop it so I’m hoping that stuff I want will be added. I don’t know that it will get Myspace access because the Myspace people seem to be stupidly obsessed with maintaining a closed system. I suggest you all migrate to Facebook, people. I really don’t want to have to keep logging in there.
If you guys have twitter or identi.ca you should add me. My username is taomongoose on both.
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