I love when whatever I’m thinking about on a particular day is echoed by my social stream. There’s something inherently uplifting in the fact that other people are interested in or concerned with the same things you are.

Today, the issue at hand is my health. It’s a long story and I won’t get into it right now, but suffice it to say that I haven’t been happy with my health habits over the last few months, and I’ve been a failure at turning things around.

That doesn’t mean I won’t, but things have been a bit discouraging. Enter the captivating video above, shared by Anthony De Rosa on Twitter.. Visually pleasing and very relevant, I thought it a good decision to post here.

Now, off for a walk.

The effort required to tweet tells me that someone thought it was important. And I do care about that.

A lifestream is a way of organizing digital objects—photos, emails, documents, Web links, music—in a time-ordered series. A timeline, in essence, that extends into the past but also the future (with appointments, to-do lists, etc.).

The issue these streams will have to address is that while time is one excellent way of organizing information, it’s not the only one. For example, I wouldn’t want my emails just thrown together with incoming tweets, because I need my emails to stand out. All data are not created equal, and organizational needs are fluid. The all-encompassing timeline only works if I can rearrange it and sort by some other factor whenever I need to.

First thought: Clearly, I’m famous.

Upon further inspection of my subscribers’ identities, though, I found they were the two people who had recently requested to be my friend and been denied.  One old acquaintance from high school and one account I think is some type of bot.

Let down. And, concerning.

This looks like the latest confusing aspect of Facebook’s increasingly complicated environment. When we ignore or otherwise do not approve a friend request, we get the feeling that we’ve made our intentions clear – this person shouldn’t be able to see what I post. Dumping them into the subscribers bin so they get notified of any public post is a bit disingenuous, methinks.

There are, to be sure, a number of ways in which this might not be a big deal – if you don’t publish any public updates, for example, your subscribers won’t see anything. Facebook, though, keeps making it tougher for its users – especially the nontechnical ones – to fully grasp the intricacies of its new products. Above all else, that’s just bad customer service.

For now, it’s prompted me to turn off all subscribing. Unfortunate.

1. Is the genesis of Facebook and the Winklevoss’ lawsuit not the greatest testament to Matt Waite’s ‘demos, not memos‘ advice? Without being an expert on intellectual property nor researching the intricate details of the suit (for another time), Zuckerberg appears to be the de facto winner just by building the fucking thing. As Aaron Sorkin (writer crush) says in the screenplay, “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.” Put simply: If you have an idea, turn it into something tangible. Or if you’re like me and can’t program, get a friend who can and build it together.
2. I’m a sucker for a good story (and I recognize that much of the movie’s truth is stretched) but I was really struck by the implicit power and opportunity in Facebook’s beginnings. A few 20-year-old kids in a dorm room started to build something and it ended of dramatically changing the world. College kids drinking beer and riffing on ideas. That’s me –(okay, a few months ago.) But it’s not people we see on TV or read about anymore. It is not at all a stretch to say that the people I’ve come into contact with or communicate with daily may be the creators of the next big thing in media and technology. It always used to be ‘other people.’ Not anymore.
3. Once again setting aside the film’s fictional insinuations about how Facebook was built as one big plot to fit in and get girls, it does a good job of telling the truth about why technology matters. Digital tools help us improve our physical lives, which we tend to forget are still very much analog. The feeling you get when you relive a fond memory by looking through your old Facebook photos is quite literally an analog impulse being triggered by your brain and nervous system. Sure, you could experience that memory without the photo, but the photo makes it more vivid. The digital technology improves your analog world. (By the way, check the title tag of this blog’s homepage. I’ve been sitting on this idea for a while and really ought to write more about it.)

There is certainly much more to say, but that comes later. See the movie. Reactions have been mixed and polarized, but Sorkin makes you think – and you’ve got to love a story that makes you do some serious reflecting.

The culprit seems to be a large bump in retweets. No stats for you, but those are clearly way up, and will continue to increase as more of our readers join the Twitterverse. Our new blog design, too, may be pushing readers to tweet rather than comment, as we’ve added the flashy green retweet button, and relegated the comments button to the plain old gray text.

The real question is this: does it matter? Is a bump in retweets a fair trade for a dearth of comments? While its pretty close to a wash, I’d say it’s no problem. Readers have the ability to squeeze in a short comment before the RT in their tweet, and the retweets clearly get our product out to more people – a fundamental goal. And if more people are reading, there is a better chance for a good number of comments anyway.

The problem is that it’s tough to tell how many of our readers have the chance to retweet. Twitter is exploding – especially on campus – but its probably fair to say that a large majority of students and other GW community members don’t have twitter and thus won’t retweet. Of course, everyone can comment – and if we’re lowering the chance they will by featuring the retweet button instead of the comment button, are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Maybe.

Incidentally, I asked this same question in a forum over at Wired Journalists. If you’re a journalist, you should check that site out.

Back in MN, cypress mulch is my life.

I finally made it back to good old Minnesota earlier this week, and it’s been a great change-up from the city life of D.C. A little different to be out working in the yard rather than spending every working hour in front of a computer, but I should be able to handle it.

Since I’ve gotten back, though, I’ve already had a pair of conversations with friends from home who don’t use Twitter, and don’t understand why it’s useful. I’ve tried to explain how Twitter can be used for great professional benefit, rather than the more personal benefit that Facebook offers, but I haven’t gotten a great response. I’m confident that if everyone gave Twitter a try (and used it correctly), they’d see the value. But being back in Minneapolis makes me wonder if some people just aren’t cut out for it.

That said, everyone I follow these days is journalism/web/D.C.-based. Anyone know of any good Minneapolis people, businesses or organizations to follow?

But even as Twitter links to local media’s video and photos came in droves, the more interesting part of the whole situation wasn’t how Twitter directed viewers to other coverage in mainstream media sites. Rather, the most remarkable part for me was the amount of public service tweeting going on. Has that term been coined yet? I’ll take credit for now.

Even the rarest D.C.-based tweeters in my list of followers were spreading the word: Stay away from the Metro. It seems to me that Twitter was being used to ensure that people knew what had happened, not just for their own knowledge, but to keep people out of the Metro system and make sure a bad situation didn’t get worse. I guess I can’t be certain what each person’s intentions were, but that’s what it looked like to me.

Have there been other notable instances of public service tweeting? I’m sure I missed one. Point it out if you know of any.