TrickJarrett.com

Twitter preparing to launch 'Notes' blogging functionality

I will be curious to see how this rolls out, both to the user, but also to the API backend. Will they keep this a platform only feature (such as polls, which you cannot create via the API) or will they allow folks to blog to Twitter via a 3rd party app?

I can see cases for it both ways. But it seems to me that democratizing it via the API is a net value for Twitter. Allowing publishers on other platforms to push content onto their site provides more reason for users (in this, consumers of that content) to stay on the site.

If that is the case, then the question moves back to the writers to decide what is either posted only to Twitter, or to both, or to just their owned platform. I don't know where I'd fall on that yet. On the one hand, while I have TrickBot make its twice-daily posts on @trickjarrett, I also have @TrickWords, and I could see that becoming the Twitter blog account essentially. Or, given their new community functionality, I could create a blog community, and potentially write the blog notes into that community for people who have opted in to that segment of what I would post.

It's an interesting question to explore.

The venomous cone snail might hold key to new diabetes drugs?

The intro is a bit long, but once he gets going, I quite enjoyed playing along as he took this 21 custom wordle challenge.

Mailbox-style Readers

Dave Weiner hits on a really good point about RSS readers and the popularity of the mailbox style UI. I have been so used to this UI design that I never considered an alternative, but he's 100% right.

Here's the idea I tweeted at him:

...

I don't have time for another coding project.

Damnit Dave.

Samsung Galaxy Smart Watch 4 - $180 - Deal on Woot.com

I had been waiting for the Pixel watch, but - well - the deal got me and so we pulled the trigger. This matches the lowest price for the watch on Amazon (back in April.) I love my Surface Duo 2, but the closed screen form factor really inhibits me getting notifications.

I had tried a smartwatch before and found it unnecessary because I lived with my old phones in hand. With the Duo 2, I think it will be a big benefit to allow me some quick actions without having to open the phone up.

Brave Search crossed 2.5B searches

I have to be honest. When it comes to searching, I've been pretty much only a Googler for a while now. I would use DDG when I wanted to ensure a search didn't end up connected with me for advertising, but otherwise I haven't strayed from big G.

It might be time I start.

Twitter

If we ignore that Twitter is always dangerously close to being a doomscroll black hole, I have to say, I find Communites and Notes to be two interesting tools.

I still don't want them owning my platforms, I want to own my own. But I think both open interesting doors for utilizing their platform for my own promotion. I somewhat expect Writes to be a premium feature to use, we'll see. But, if it isn't, I'm imagining using it to post articles, or maybe a post which updates through the day as I make posts here.

As for Communities, I have Trickbot post twice a day on @trickjarrett over there, but if I could make a post into a community via the API, then I could set every post I make to be posted into a community for the blog. Then people would be opting in there to get the updates, etc.

Memphis Flyer - Elvis

Chris McCoy, a film critic in Memphis, wrote the linked review about the new Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie. But, right at the start of it, he talks about my brother's experimental short film from 2010:

The most insightful film I’ve ever seen about Elvis Presley is “The Singing Canary,” a five-minute experimental short by Memphis director Adam Remsen. It contains neither images of Elvis nor his music, only footage of astronauts and rocket launches. Remsen’s voice-over casts Elvis not as a singer or entertainer or idol, but as an explorer of new psychic spaces.

Word of the day: Concision

Adding Screenshots to the morning TrickBot Tweet & Talking about Tags

Alright, wrapping up my coding for the night. Spent tonight finally figuring out how to post images on tweets via the API. Specifically so that the morning TrickBot tweet, updating followers on my posts, would include a screenshot of the top of the frontpage.

I've had the screenshot stuff worked out for a week or so, thanks to screenshotmachine.com. They have a free API which permits 100 calls a month. And since I am planning to do it once daily, the math there works out in my favor.

I have been using the old TwitterAPIExchange PHP library. I can't say definitely the issue I was dealing with was because of it, but after I switched to the http://TwitterOauth.com library, it was a fairly quick change over and it worked perfectly almost immediately.

I think the next bigger project for me with Glowbug is to really give the taxonomy and tags a rework. What I have works fine, but I think it can be better. A few ideas / questions:

• Do my tags need hierarchy? If they had them, would I add parent tags when a child tag is picked?
• Should I tag a post if the term is in the body or title of the post? I think yes, if I am going to create tag-based pages. However, if not, then tags purely serve search functionality, and the answer becomes yes.
• I need to completely rewrite the taxonomy management page in my admin tools. It's awful but functional. I want it to be better.
• Need better identification of duplicate tags and handling/fixing of them.
• And of course, I need to set up archive pages for tags

All that said, these are going to sit on the task list for a while. I have two new bigger ideas in mind. I'm taking the week of the 4th of July off, and while I plan to spend much of it with family - I also intend to dive into a new project.

Edit: I just thought of another feature I need to add to the automated tweets. I need to thread replies which link to posts I make which have direct links. I don't do this often, but usually for longer posts. Adding it to the backlog.

A New RSS Reader For Me

I have, for over a year now, scanned and read tens of thousands of items from RSS feeds through my FreshRSS installation. As of this writing, I am subscribed to 114 different feeds which I break into eight different categories. Though, the truth is, I don't use the category organization nearly at all. And part of that is because, it isn't relevant to my consuming the feed, the categories are there for me to manage my feed.

I will check my reader several times throughout the day, usually seeing between 50 and 200 posts when I do. And I don't bother going site by site or anything. I just use hotkeys and quickly jump to each entry, scanning through them for interesting stuff. I'd wager 80% of the links I post here originate in my RSS feed now. I love it.

That said, I've had a germinating idea for a new RSS reader-esque site/tool sitting in my head for weeks now. I had a few different pieces and ideas, and today's blog post by Dave Winer stirred it back up for me.

Within an hour, I had a list of features & ideas jotted down. The original idea was something more akin to a Tweetdeck style multi-column layout social bookmarking site.

But Dave's post caused me to reframe the idea and repurpose the UI. I do think this idea is more than just an RSS feed reader. I think of it more as a personal information hub. I'd integrate other API services, such as social platforms (pulling tweets in?), sports, weather updates, etc. Maybe even email.

The screen layout is in columns, though I don't yet have sizing or design concepts really in mind. I think there are two main columns and the ability to add more.

The main (to me, that means left, but we'll see how it ends up) column of this is the "Fast Lane" (working title) - which would be the most recent unread feed of stuff sorted chronologically. It's the firehouse of information.

I think the next column becomes a "Queue" list. You can flag content in the fast lane, and it gets pulled to the right so you have more time to peruse it. But the stuff in that column has an expiration. I've toyed with this idea when I was using Glowbug's draft post functionality as a quasi "to read" list. I didn't want to get to overwhelmed with things, so I was instituting a 48 hour timeout for this column, after that time it got dropped, assuming that since the item was not worth the effort to read in that time, that it was no longer important. If I really wanted to read something, I'd either read it immediately, or save it more permanently to come back to. I think that same idea would go into effect on the Queue. Though you'd customize the timeout time.

As I said, you would also have the ability to make different lanes. Maybe you want to filter on keywords, or a lane just filled with specific data sources. Or if it does integrate email, then you have a dedicated email inbox. That should be doable.

Now, also as above, sometimes I will just want to save things for a longer term purpose. Maybe it's a future blog post or maybe it's another project. That's when things get parked. And Parking is the more full "let's archive it, tag it, categorize it, etc." Save snapshots of the page, etc.

That's the core of the idea.

All of that could be just for an RSS reader style implementation. But I think this idea could also be more of a central hub. As someone who hungrily consumes information and data, this structure would really appeal to me. And it would allow me to combine my RSS reader and my Wallabag/Pocket content. You could come across a page or article outside of it, and then immediately queue or park it. The focused reading would need to be aces, optimized for ease and comfort of reading across devices.

And who knows what else there would be. Lots of integration ideas to play with and this is already quickly becoming a behemoth project. But... I'm not intimidated. I'm excited. God help me.