Life as a beta geek

It’s been nearly a year since I first posted to Twitter (ironically enough, given the content of this post, about information volume).

Of all of the web services that I use, Twitter is the hardest to explain: many people, even relatively clueful friends and colleagues don’t get it. To me, its value is three-fold. Firstly, the microblogging aspect is great for those times when I’d like to capture a moment or thought, but wouldn’t necessarily have the time or inclination to fire up Wordpress and write a full blog piece. Secondly, it’s a valuable means of communication with friends, sitting at the confluence of the web/IM/SMS Venn diagram. Finally, Twitter has been a means to make and cement friendships with people I might not otherwise have met.

However, I’m beginning to feel as though Twitter has passed a tipping point for me and is no longer as useful as it once was. As with all social networks, it boils down to people: as Jemima Kiss recently observed in passing, “it takes months to build up, or curate, if you like, a really useful, relevant and manageable group.”

The manageable aspect is fundamental. Discounting RSS feeds syndicated to Twitter, and other automatic updates, the forty seven people in my network have generated over 600 updates in the last twenty four hours — not an atypical level of traffic — and the volume is such that I can’t keep up with it.

The immediate solution which springs to mind is to prune my network back to a manageable level (dead-heading seems far too unkind a term for it). But doing so inevitably means that the people I know least will be the ones to go. This time last year I didn’t know @sizemore, but through Twitter I’ve come to know someone with whom I’ve enjoyed fascinating conversations, both online and in person. Without following someone who was initially a stranger, I wouldn’t have started experimenting with QR codes, or had lunch with Jessa from Bookslut. So I wonder what I might miss if I start cutting back my network.

In the meantime, any thoughts on achieving a manageable Twitter network would be very welcome.

I’ve got a couple of projects coming up which involve Google Maps, so as a learning experience, I’ve set up a page showing a walk around the six Hawksmoor churches in Central and East London, with photographs of each church, and an approximate distance and time taken from the excellent walkit.com. Now, in technical terms, this is about as unsophisticated as it gets - nothing like the slick Penguin story/maps mashup. Nonetheless, I’m pleased with it and look forward to learning more about the maps platform.

I am delighted to announce the rather early arrival of my son Noah, born at 2AM last Wednesday, 26 March, seen here with his adoring big sister.

Readers of this blog might have got the impression that I’m rather keen on technology — including, but hardly limited to, computers, smartphones, e-book readers and media players. However, as fond as I am of shiny gadgets, I have a deeper, longer-standing compulsion: notebooks and pens. Growing up, one of my favourite things about the start of a school year was going to get new stationery. No matter how easy it becomes to make notes electronically, there’s something fundamentally appealing about ink on dead trees — especially dead trees of the Moleskine variety.

The reason that I’ve been thinking about this subject is that I’ve recently come across four examples of good notebooks:

• Top of the heap, in terms of cost and wow factor, are these custom, laser-engraved Moleskine notebooks [via Mike].
• James has veered away from Moleskines in favour of making his own notebooks through lulu.com, using a classic book cover [via Booktwo].
• Mark Frauenfelder links to some handsome graph paper notebooks “inspired by the vanishing subgenre of agricultural memo books, ornate pocket ledgers and the simple, unassuming beauty of a well-crafted grocery list” [via BoingBoing].
• Finally, I rather like some of the Right Note range of notebooks - they sell a splendid ”Action” notebook, with Buchanesque thirties pulp cover, for recording “stupefyingly important things to do.” Unfortunately, their website isn’t as good as their products — though it is being redeveloped.

Watching Twitter and various blogs over the last few days, it has felt as though almost everyone I know was at SXSW. One of the downsides of digital publishing is that if one went to all of the interesting and relevant conferences in the year, one would scarcely have time to actually do anything. Having had a terrific few days at Tools of Change earlier in the year, and with less than five weeks to go until Sarah’s due date, I’m not heartbroken at not being in Austin. However, for anyone else who didn’t travel to Texas, my former colleague Lindsey has been blogging her notes from the conference, including twenty ways to woo users, how manga explains the world and conversations with monster makers.

One of the effects of blogging about the Tools of Change conference was that the traffic to this blog, which normally toddles along at an almost non-existent a charmingly amateurish level, increased by about two thousand percent in the second half of February. Looking at referral logs and responding to a few comments and emails has brought me into contact with some interesting people. So, in the absence of original blogging, here are some suggestions for blogs to visit.

• Kieron Smith is Managing Director at Retail8, which is some kind of bookselling skunk works. His new blog Koob is currently counting down the days to the beta launch of their Bookrabbit service. Kieron is an acquaintance of mine — although we’ve never worked together, our career paths have run close at several points — and I’m fascinated to see what he’s up to.
• I’ve also begun reading the Exact Editions blog, which is run by Adam Hodgkin, who it transpires was also at Tools of Change, though we didn’t connect there.
• Finally, Electric Alphabet is a look at writing and publishing in the digital age, with some interesting thoughts on RSS, recommendation engines and freeconomics, among other topics.

While I was in New York for the Tools of Change conference, I picked up a Sony PRS-505 e-book reader, which I’ve been using for a week now. Thus far, it’s been an almost entirely pleasurable experience.

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Well, Tools of Change is over, and I’m sitting at the Hachette offices in New York waiting to get some lunch before I fly home. The conference was absolutely terrific, and I feel enthused and better informed on a whole range of subjects. Thanks to everyone who has read or commented on my conference notes — please keep any comments or questions coming.

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This is the third in a series of posts with my notes from 2008 Tools of Change conference, including presentations by Bob Young, Tim O’Reilly and Kirk Biglione.

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This is the second in a series of posts with my notes from 2008 Tools of Change conference, including presentations by Brent Lewis, John Ingram and Barry Libert.

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